Reflection Paper

The article is about how the infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States have
shaped and affected the policy making process in the US government. The attacks have awaken
the American people especially the policy actors which are the members of the Congress and
other responsible federal government agencies. The 9/11 attacks can be attributed to a “Focusing
Event” where it evolves to be included into the main agenda of the legislative bodies. It is also
one of the scenarios where a public problem is present in order to have a reason for policy creation
or improvement. As per Birkland (2004, as cited in Baumgartner and Jones, 1993), Focusing
Events are important because they are one of the triggers to opening the policy window. What
happened on that day of the attack also created questions as to “Where did we fail?” or “What
regulations did we missed tightening on?” Such event that happened where airplanes may collide
on corporate and government buildings are just “unimaginable” during the early years of 2000s
and thus, policies on security matters especially aviation security were not given much
importance. Reports on US correspondence companies also showed that most of the security
threats are just classified as national instead of foreign related threats. This has also caused
terrorism to be not a major concern for the public. The next paragraphs will explain on what
changes to policies, public administration, as well as the people may bring in relation to the post
September 11 attacks in the United States and in the course and discipline of public policy.
The article by Birkland made me realize the big impact of a national threat or disaster to
the community as it opens up to a lot discussion about the different areas in the society which will
be affected. When policy alternatives are being deliberated, one must look on the policy
environment which are the political, economic, social, and cultural aspects that will be involved
by such policy. The issue may also be related to the current public health problem of the COVID-
19 pandemic which is affecting the whole world and is challenging many governments to eradicate
the deadly virus. The management of the pandemic undergoes the elements of three “streams”
as defined by John Kingdon. First, under the political steam, public health emergency became a
concern for law creating bodies and of course became an immediate threat to the public. The end
goal of every government is also to solve the public problem to eradicate the virus in the
communities and thus, it undergoes the policy stream which should provide for the potential
solutions. Lastly, the pandemic qualifies under the problem stream wherein the public health
emergency encompasses all of the different level of status in the society whether a person is rich
or poor. COVID-19 pandemic is also an event where people continuously wonder if the problem
has already been solved through the potential solutions to be applied by the government. In the
Philippines, the government’s IATF for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases was
formed in order to take action for the rising cases of COVID-19 in the country just as the
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in the United States was created in response to the
9/11 attacks to tighten up airport screening and detection of explosives before the passengers
onboard aircrafts. The Philippine Congress also acted on the public problem through the
enactment of the Bayanihan laws 1 and 2 which grants presidential authority in combatting
COVID-19 and the measures of the government in controlling the rising cases of the virus as well
as policies for the country’s revival of its economy. The proposal of the aforementioned
legislations made “windows of opportunity” as there are a lot of areas to consider before the
approval of such policy.
The issue of terrorism was indeed in the US Congress’ agenda for a long time already
even before the 9/11 attacks due to aviation threat history such as what happened in Pan Am
flight 103 and TWA flight 800, however, the successfully executed 9/11 attacks made a reason
for a more stringent agenda for the policy actors. Just as what happened in the Philippines, the
 Reflection Paper

government has not prepared before hand of the possibility of the disease spreading in the
country. It is worth mentioning that in the year 2013, the late senator Miriam Defensor Santiago
was a proponent of Senate Bill 1573 or the “Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act” which
called for the creation of a national health strategy during pandemics in response to the world’s
grappling with the Middle East Respiratory (MERS) outbreak that time. Unfortunately, the bill
remained pending at the committee level in the 16th Congress (Ferreras, 2020). This is one of the
actions of the government which could have prevented or prepared the country for such strike of
a disease. The Philippines was not directly affected by the MERS disease and so policy proposals
on public health emergencies were not given a major concern to be a main agenda. The
immediate effect to the country was a rapid rise of virus cases and one that is uncontrolled up
until to date. The COVID-19 status in the country is alarming compared to the neighbor South
East Asian countries such as Thailand which was reported to be outstanding in the management
of their public health emergency. With this, something might be misleading in the current policy
of the Philippine government for COVID-19 response. Solving the pandemic problem may also
be attributed to John Kingdon’s argument that existing ideas are combined with the new problems.
New solutions to public problems continue to bubble up and be recycled through the “primordial
soup” of policy ideas (Birkland, 2004). It should be the duty of every government agency up to the
local government units to implement such policies enforced by the IATF-EID. One of the most
important practices of the government that has been executed well at the present time of
pandemic is the information sharing of various government authorities. This is also where the US
government failed on implementing which could have halted all the airport operations and
prevented the terrorist attacks.
A policy is an action of the government to solve a public problem and the policy actors
should also be passionate when they are involved in creating policies related therein. At present,
all the members of the society are directly affected by a public health problem. Even our
lawmakers are not exempted from it and they are the only ones we can rely upon during these
trying times. The people must be protected from the disease and thus, the lawmakers must also
not endanger and should protect themselves from further harm. In addition, political actors’
behaviors change over time when public problems are evident. Some of them will support a policy
innovation in order to provide benefit for the communities they represent as in the case of the
members of the US Congress who were eagerly focused on the aviation security discussions as
a lot of their constituents are frequent fliers and their safety is a priority.
Working on policies also requires the need of experts who can really contribute on the
measures to be applied for the public’s benefit. The US Congress in response to the terrorist
attacks retained the existence of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as it is the sole expert
in cockpit security which is crucial on the investigation of the successful hijacking of the aircrafts
during 9/11 and for the creation of policy alternatives to aviation security domain. The FAA still
remained even when it failed the stiffening of airport and aircraft security on the day of the attacks
and the screening and detecting jobs were already given to the TSA. A generalist lawmaker may
not be able to contribute that much in the discussion of aviation security. In the issue of the
pandemic, the Philippine government relies on the expertise of those in the medical fields for their
opinion on crucial policies to be implemented by the government while enforcement of stricter
rules on health protocols are continuously being implemented and monitored by the country’s
armed forces and police force.
 Reflection Paper

One of examples in Birkland’s article on where policy making lies in the hands of those
who knows the process of policy making is his distinction of the news media and the lawmaking
bodies. Like the news media, Congress has paid a great deal of attention to the attacks, but the
expansion of the agenda was not as great as the media’s attention to the issue. The only
difference is that Congress is a deliberative body by design, and will move slower than the media,
but in many ways will be more purposive in its actions than the media (Birkland, 2004). The media
has been a very important part of culture on every critical event that may happen all around our
country. Through the news we are able to see what’s the current affairs up to date especially
when Filipinos watch out for the any threats or upcoming disasters such as typhoon warnings,
floods, and other natural disasters. The problem with the media is that all issues concerning the
public’s safety only airs for a short duration of time on a disastrous event’s peak which will already
decline in a few weeks to months after a new public problem has been again introduced.
Lawmakers on the other hand is a primary lawmaking body which may move slower than the
media but is more deliberative and purposive when it comes to actions in policy making than what
the media is showing to the public. (Birkland, 2004). This also make people to believe that
congress is not focusing that much on the priority matters of the government.
As a student of public policy, I learned that policy creation involves an emergence of a
major event which has a major impact not just for a particular group of people but sometimes the
scope is the society as a whole. In my opinion, the policy actors need not to wait on crisis or
catastrophe to happen before an action is done but instead planning ahead is crucial to prevent
catastrophic events to affect the people. We must learn from history of the events that occurred
on a specific agenda in order to anticipate the risks that may occur to our country which will affect
the people. To add an example of a situation, in the Philippines, events which are continuously
happening and cannot be controlled by human efforts such as natural disasters like typhoons
should be given focus by the government authorities on how to be prepared whenever a
devastating typhoon hits again our country. The typhoons Ondoy and Yolanda made enough
lessons for the public on how preparedness before calamities strike are crucial for the safety of
the Filipino communities. Even though natural calamities strike indefinitely and is out of the control
of people’s hands, one of the solutions for this public problem is to strengthen the country’s
disaster risk reduction and management program that is integrated across all levels of
government agencies.
My previous job experience at the Office of Civil Defense gave me an opportunity to be
exposed on the thematic pillars of disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM) which for me
is one the Philippine government’s policy alternatives and response to previous natural disasters
that devastated many areas of the country just as the United States’ action after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. DRRM all boils down and originates from the Prevention and Mitigation pillar where
policies are first created such as the approval of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and
Management Plan (NDRRMP) supported by the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and
Management Act of 2010. This is then followed by Preparedness which involved the capacity
building and training of the responsible authorities for on the important activities to prepare before
the calamity strikes. Third is the Response pillar where it is one of the commonly seen areas of
DRRM where authorities with the help of the government’s armed forces are in action to rescue
people affected by calamities. Lastly, the recovery and rehabilitation pillar is given importance for
the affected people to rise up, recover, and be resilient again towards living their normal lives.
 Reflection Paper

References

Birkland, T. (2004, February 12). “The World Changed Today”: Agenda-Setting and Policy
Change in the Wake of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks. Review of Policy Research,
Volume 21, Number 2.

Baumgartner, F. R., & Jones, B. D. (1993). Agendas and instability in American politics. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Ferreras, V. (2020, April 9). How to survive a pandemic: Invest in the country’s healthcare system.
CNN Philippines. https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/9/Invest-in-healthcare-to-
survive-pandemic-.html