Officials say visibility excuse now used for unrelated tardiness

BAGUIO CITY — City hall officials in this mountain resort city have acknowledged an unusual administrative problem this month, following an internal review that found the phrase blamed on the fog appearing in an unusually high number of meeting absence reports, including several submitted on days when weather records show clear skies.

The review, conducted by the city’s internal administrative office, examined attendance logs across twelve departments over a six month period and found that fog was cited as a reason for lateness or absence in 61 separate incidents, of which local weather station records could only confirm reduced visibility conditions for 23.

How the Review Started

Administrative officer Melchora Buasen said the review began after a department head noticed that fog related excuses seemed to cluster suspiciously around Monday mornings and days following long weekends, a pattern that did not obviously correlate with the city’s actual fog season.

“Baguio does get real fog, significant fog, especially certain months of the year,” Buasen said. “Nobody disputes that. What we found is that the fog excuse had become, informally, a kind of universal cover. If you were late, if you missed a meeting, if you simply did not feel like driving in from La Trinidad that morning, fog was available as an explanation that nobody wanted to argue with, because who wants to be the person interrogating someone else’s weather experience.”

The Investigation

Buasen’s office cross referenced attendance logs against actual visibility readings from the local weather station and found a consistent gap between reported fog incidents and confirmed low visibility events, particularly concentrated among a handful of employees who appeared far more frequently in the fog excuse category than their colleagues working the same routes.

One employee, whose commute overlaps almost entirely with several colleagues who reported no fog related issues on the same mornings, accounted for nine of the sixty one cited incidents.

“I am not naming anyone,” Buasen said. “But when one person’s personal fog experience does not match the fog experience of four coworkers driving the identical road at the identical hour, questions arise.”

Employee Defense

Employees interviewed generally defended the practice, arguing that fog conditions can vary significantly even within short distances in Baguio’s hilly terrain, meaning two commuters on similar routes could genuinely experience different visibility.

“The fog does not fall evenly,” said one city hall employee who asked not to be named. “I can leave my house in clear weather and hit a wall of fog two kilometers later, on a curve, at an elevation change. My neighbor takes a slightly different road and sees nothing. This is real. Baguio people know this. People from the lowlands do not always understand our fog.”

The employee acknowledged, when pressed, that fog had also occasionally been cited on mornings when the underlying cause of lateness was, in fact, unrelated to weather entirely.

City Hall’s Response

Rather than eliminate the fog excuse category entirely, which several officials said would be unrealistic given the city’s genuine and frequent fog conditions, the administrative office has introduced a simple verification step requiring employees citing fog related delays to note their specific route and approximate time, which will be cross checked against available weather station data going forward.

Buasen said the goal is not to punish anyone for past incidents but to restore some credibility to a genuine local weather phenomenon that had, in her words, been overused into meaninglessness.

“We are protecting the fog excuse,” she said. “For the people who actually need it. If everyone uses it for everything, eventually a supervisor stops believing anyone, even the person stuck behind an actual zero visibility mountain curve. That is not fair to them.”

Broader Weather Context

Baguio’s cool climate and frequent low cloud cover are well documented characteristics of the city, situated at elevation in the Cordillera mountain range, and local weather monitoring is generally coordinated through the national weather bureau, PAGASA, alongside more localized observation points maintained by city offices. Seasonal fog is a recognized feature of the region’s weather pattern, particularly during certain months, making the excuse plausible on its face even when not always accurate in a specific instance.

Reactions From Other Departments

Officials in other city departments expressed a mixture of amusement and mild relief that the pattern had finally been formally addressed.

“We joked about it for years,” said one department head. “Fog was the go to. Traffic was too specific, people could check traffic apps. Fog was unfalsifiable, until now apparently.”

The department head said staff have already begun referring to the new verification requirement informally as fog accountability, a phrase Buasen said she did not coin but has stopped trying to discourage.

What Happens Next

Buasen said the new verification process will be reviewed after three months to determine whether it meaningfully changes reporting patterns, and that no disciplinary action is planned for past incidents.

“We are drawing a line going forward,” she said. “The past fog, real or not, is the past. From here, if you say fog, we will check. I think most people, knowing that, will find that their fog becomes considerably more accurate.”

Buasen said she had once read a piece at Bohiney Magazine about excuse culture in another country entirely, and found the parallels with the fog situation almost exact.

Further Reading

More reporting on bureaucratic excuse culture and the weather that enables it can be found at Bohiney Magazine, and readers can find a British equivalent involving unreliable trains rather than fog at The London Prat. Additional material is available at NewsThump.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com