Having a laugh? That's damage control

[FarangFarang]

Having a laugh? That's damage control

Published: 1/10/2011 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: News

On Wednesday it was reported that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra mistakenly confirmed that the cabinet had approved the navy's second-hand submarine procurement plan.

But this was not the case and later that same day a team of government spokesmen came out to correct the mistake.

Deputy government spokesman Chailitrat Chandru-beksa told the media that the PM had misunderstood the question and had thought reporters were asking her about the army's move to buy eight French-made helicopters.

All the people around the country who aren't idiots sighed and went about their day.

Meanwhile, those who continually fall for spokespeople propaganda now think that the PM can't tell the difference between a submarine and a helicopter!

Such is the logic of those in charge of damage control in Thailand.

Rather than just accept the slip up, confirm the PM's earlier statement that "[she] couldn't remember" and acknowledge that she is human and capable of mistakes, denial mode set in and stupid excuses flowed like the flood waters in the North.

Now just think, if this inconsequential mistake was enough to warrant an entire team of spokespeople to clear things up, then what about serious problems?

How far will the authorities go to hide, dispute, cover up, ignore, and eventually make worse, all their mishaps and less-than-stellar ideas?

How about by going so far as to place CCTV cameras inside papier-mache Ja Choey police dummies and marry one misplaced idea with a mindblowingly dumb notion and create a monster?

Last week I wrote about the problems of CCTV and how Thailand's law enforcement is not ready to police the state via camera due to an overwhelming indifference to the country's legal system and punishments that are weak and rarely handed out.

As for Ja Choey, the smiling dummies have never really been taken seriously. Maybe it's because they are creepy, four-foot-tall mannequins, or maybe it's because they were thought up by the production crew from Home Alone as a way of keeping slapstick burglars out of wealthy homes in the suburbs, I'm just not sure.

Some might argue that they are not really the optimal crime fighting device because they are not able to issue tickets to speeding motorists, arrest criminals, help lost children find their parents, tie their own shoe laces or really do anything that, you know, a real human police officer should be able to do.

Feeling embattled at having all of their five-minutes-of-thought ideas criticised, and still trying to figure out how they are going wipe out Thailand's drug problem with only ten months left to deadline, the police department's damage control team stepped in.

The result? We now have CCTV cameras installed inside dummy police officers! In a kind of Third World-meets-Robocop scenario, speeding motorists (initially on the Don Muang Tollway and later elsewhere) will be warned of upcoming speed cameras by the sight of a waving statue with a perpetual grin and an inability to look in any direction except straight ahead.

Rather than admit that Thailand's CCTV plan has more flaws than Homepro and work on creating a plan that will allow the camera network to effectively reduce traffic and stop traffic crime throughout Bangkok, while recuperating the cost of the system through higher priced speeding tickets. Or, in the case of Ja Choey, putting their hands up and saying, "Hey, sorry we were drunk when we had that idea."

Police authorities have instead gone for this ridiculous PR stunt that will have no impact on anything whatsoever.

Putting cameras in dummy police officers will not make them any more effective if we do not have the actual police to back them up and respond to crime within a reasonable time frame.

The same goes for the CCTV cameras themselves, with the added bonus that we now lose the ability to rotate the cameras 360 degrees.

Is it stubborn, is it big egos, is it incompetence? Thailand's damage control teams are all about the fine art of blending all of these things and, most importantly, once again, trying desperately to save face. Honestly, you'd think nobody in Thailand ever had a bad idea.

Well, that's until you see that the first-time car buyers scheme is threatening to force foreign car manufacturers to bypass the Thai market. The first-time home buyers scheme is doing nothing to help the socio-economic group it was designed to help. And flooding problems are so bad that neighbouring provinces are redirecting the waterflow to one another. Someone had better call damage control immediately!

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/259154/having-a-laugh-that-damage-control

K' Arglit deserves a pat on the back for this one. The mix of tongue in cheek humor with frustration was perfect. Kudos K' Arglit.

[Guest troylee]

Feeling embattled at having all of their five-minutes-of-thought ideas criticised, and still trying to figure out how they are going wipe out Thailand's drug problem with only ten months left to deadline, the police department's damage control team stepped in.

Edited October 19, 2011 by FarangFarang