Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte: Love Her or Hate Her?

During the rainy season, students, parents and school administrators are always on their toes on the lookout for possible class suspensions either the night before or early morning. The plot thickens when one by one, local governments start to make announcements that they are suspending classes in their respective areas.

Last Thursday though (7.27.17), students studying in Quezon City as well as their parents did not like the storyline when Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte, amidst the inclement weather and class suspensions in other cities, decided not to follow suit. In other words, no suspension of classes.

Bandwagon effect and citing PAGASA

The Vice Mayor mentioned that “it was a challenge for us not to be swayed by the bandwagon effect.” To put it simply, she did not want to be influenced by the decision made by other local governments.

On that fateful day, majority of local government units in Metro Manila already made an early announcement suspending classes. In Quezon City however, no announcement has been made yet until past 4 am. Unfortunately, it was an unexpected announcement, one that did not jibe with those made by other cities.

The QC local government cited PAGASA’s forecast for that day as the basis for the decision not to suspend classes – that rains will be “light to moderate”. After getting a lot of flak for her unpopular decision, the Vice Mayor mentioned that they relied too much on the advisories made by PAGASA.

To quote her: “siguro ang kasalanan naming dito ay sobra kaming naniwala sa advisories ng PAGASA”.

Love her or hate her?

I commend the VM for not being swayed by the decision made by her neighboring cities, and by making sure to have a solid basis by relying on PAGASA, as this agency has the foremost and sole authority in making weather forecasts. But perhaps, what she failed to realize is that no weather forecasts are 100 percent accurate.

To begin with, a forecast is simply an estimate, and we have witnessed countless of times wherein PAGASA’s forecast did not conform with the actual weather condition and vice versa, due to unpredictability of the weather.

In my own humble opinion, the mere presence of two simultaneous weather disturbances recently – the habagat and Gorio, should have been enough for the VM to think twice despite the forecast that there will only be light to moderate rains. She could have taken a cue from the decision made by other cities, since as the saying goes – if there is smoke then there is fire, and this does not necessarily translate to her committing the bandwagon fallacy.

Furthermore, not all students studying in schools in Quezon City are residents of the same city. What if the weather is not conducive for getting out of the house in the areas of non-QC residents? I think this idea should always be taken into consideration not just by the local officials of Quezon City, but by all local officials of Metro Manila.

She did suspend classes

Vice Mayor Belmonte did suspend classes eventually at around 11 am, but much to the dismay of students since either they were already in school or on their way to school. And this is nothing new since this has happened many times before.

Late suspension of classes is a struggle that students and parents have to put up with during the rainy season. But this is the lesser evil that we all have to accept, since it is still better to suspend late than not to suspend at all. Through this, students will be able to come home early (unless malls and computer shops will distract them).

Conclusion

Ultimately, parents will always be in the best position to decide on whether or not to send their children to school. But it will be helpful for them if the local government will be able to come up with an early and sound decision.

What if they suspended classes and did not rain at all? Then it does not matter and this does not mean that they made a wrong decision.

As the old saying goes: an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.