YOURSAY ‘You got to be properly qualified before you can verify.’

Hisham finds growing support on social media

Progressive: Hishammuddin Hussein has done very well in handling the crisis and being the face of Malaysia.

But as defence minister, he should submit his resignation and continue as acting transport minister. If our MiGs had been scrambled to intercept MH370, we would have known that there was a major problem on board.

The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) chief should be sacked. The Malaysia Airlines (MAS) chief executive officer (CEO) should resign. The Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) chief should also go.

It is the prime minister's leadership that has averted a major crisis from boiling over, but he has many incompetent people around him.

Kee Thuan Chye: Oh, come on, this is just a smattering of comments (in support of Hishammuddin). What about the possibly many more castigating him on social media?

Hishammuddin is prime minister material? Puhleeeese!

After his many past cock-ups, his brandishing the keris twice, his defence of the cow-head agitators, his Lahad Datu botch-up, if he becomes PM, who will save Malaysia?

Paul Warren: And he kept saying "we have to verify and corroborate". As I understand it, to verify and corroborate you have to be at the very least equal to or one up on the source of the data or information coming in. You got to be properly qualified before you can verify.

Finally, now everyone is acting on the data and interpretation provided by Inmarsat. Even CNN had not heard of them. So I wonder what the nature of "verification and corroboration" that was done on Inmarsat?

I am saying Inmarsat instead of the data or information, because I cannot imagine the Malaysian authority having any qualification to understand, let alone, verify and corroborate the data.

If I am right about this, the right thing for our authorities to do is to tell us so and that we had to allow Inmarsat to set the lead on this.

Otherwise, Hishammuddin did help to salvage the slippery slope we found ourselves in the first few days. I hear (communications consultant) Apco gave a helping hand! True?

Imran: Yes, no doubt about it. I think Hishammuddin has done a good job. The few stooges standing beside him have been a national disgrace. I think so much damage have been done by the two stooges particularly.

Not only were they unprofessional but their technical knowledge is glaringly shallow. I think it will augur well for the PM to remove the two. I think Hishammuddin can try to salvage the situation by going to China and meeting the families and answer all their queries.

Visu: In a deranged society, a mediocre response from a mediocre minister would look great. The one-eyed man is king among the blind.

Very unfortunately, we are a deranged society that thinks Hisham's response was great. One thing for sure, all have learnt to act.

Oracle: I agree with Visu. This is the same minister, who in Parliament, lavishly praised his own mediocre performance. Arrogance and hallucination appears to guarantee that he will never learn.

ChaSL: Hishammuddin definitely stands out compared to the rest of the cabinet, a PM material but not necessarily a PM for all Malaysians. Then again, the BN government may be running out of steam in the next one or two general elections (GEs).

Drngsc: When your staff and you are wrong, admit it. Tell the truth. Tell all that you know. People will find out that you are lying, sooner or later.

You cannot lie and hope to get away with it. Not on the world stage, perhaps in Kampong Malaysia where you can gag the press. For me, his performance is a D- at best.

Hmmmmmmmm: Many people say that this is an unprecedented event and how difficult it is to coordinate amongst so many countries, conduct search and rescue (SAR), etc. This I agree with totally.

But I still maintain that we could have carried ourselves very well if we had the right people in all the key positions; people who understand the seriousness of their jobs when checking passengers' passports, checking radars for unidentified flying objects (UFOs), able to interpret radar readings, satellite images, knowing inside out how the equipment that they are in charge of works, etc.

Instead we are always looking to foreign experts to do the jobs for us and that takes time and also make us look so Third World. I'm sure we already have all the expertise here but for reasons that we know only too well, they are not hired.

Instead we have a whole bunch of mediocre people facing the international spotlight supposedly representing our country's so-called best team and putting us to shame. And yet there are actually people who say that we have done a commendable job.

One of the things that irked me most I learnt while watching CNN was that we had interpreters translating our daily briefings to Mandarin for relatives in Beijing. We have about 7 million Chinese in this country of which a very sizable number of them speak Mandarin.

Why couldn't we just get one of them to brief the relatives in Beijing directly? Or do we not have a single top official in MAS who speaks Mandarin?

Enlightened: Hishammuddin did a good job in handling the press conference (PC). He was articulate and consistent with his efforts in following up with leads, verifying them and corroborating evidence before communicating them to the public instead of the "shoot first and investigate later" policy many people practice.

There will always be naysayers but you have to admire his commitment and his courage and demeanour while handling the media.

Fourtan: Hishammuddin can't maintain radars, can't maintain interceptors, can't make sure that our submarines can dive, can't run a clean police force, got outmanoeuvred by Sulus.

Oh well, at least he can speak decent English. The bar is ever so low in Bolehsia.

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