POLITICAL SCIENCE REMINDERS 1
In January 2006, I submitted the following article to our Philippine Constitution and Government professor as a requirement in our Political Science class. My position stands as is.
― But they were corrupt, Father!
― They were human, my child. And if we were to reject all worldly authority for that reason, we would have to reject everything: marriage and government and society; the family, the state, and the church. We would have to abolish the world.
- Excerpt from
The Woman Who Had Two Navels
by the late 1976 National Artist, Nick Joaquin
While reading Nick Joaquin’s THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS which was a Philippine Literature class reading project during one Christmas holiday, I chanced upon the above excerpt and I couldn’t help but smile as I correlated these beautiful literary words to my position on Article II, Section 27 which states that “The State shall maintain honesty and integrity in the public service and take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption.”
In literature, which is given definition as mirroring life, corruption could romantically pose as a forgivable, tolerable, even excusable human frailty – where it concerns the heart. Not so when it concerns the law.
Graft and corruption, as one and interchangeable phenomenon, is so widespread in this country that people merely talk about it with resigned acceptance as a way of life – common especially among those who have been sworn to uphold honesty and integrity in public service.
Webster gives the following definition: graft, “the acquisition of gain (as money) in dishonest or questionable ways or by illegal or unfair gain”; corruption, the “impairment of integrity, virtue or moral principles, or an inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery).”
In the Philippines, there are several areas where graft and corruption are known to be rampant. They breathe to life in the form of non-payment of appropriate taxes, misappropriation of funds for non-existent projects and payrolls, awarding and approval of government contracts, nepotism, extortion, bribery, and of course, changing election results.
Graft and corruption come in small and big packages. From the “lagay” system where ordinary citizens are forced to resort to illegal means of offering considerable amount of money to government officials lacking in zeal and professionalism in exchange for facilitating the immediate processing of required personal documents such as permits, clearances, licenses, up to the maze-like conspiracy to cheat the nation of its vote, graft and corruption has become an everyday fare. Take for example the current news accounts:
Taxi and jeepney drivers denouncing unscrupulous members of the Manila Police District conducting daily checkpoints in Sta. Cruz, Manila who they claim ask them to shell out from P20 to P50 extortion money (Bilowan, The Daily Tribune, November
24, 2005, p. 12);
Smuggled shipments of highly-dutiable goods being diverted to the Food Terminal Inc. where they are released under questionable circumstances and with the reported blessing of a very “influential person” known to everybody at the Customs bureau (Ching, The Daily Tribune, December 1, 2005, p. 12);
The instinctive wrongness in the budget proposal of the Department of Health for purchasing mosquito nets worth P280 million in its efforts to fight mosquito-borne diseases while only setting aside more than P3 million for the anti-malaria vaccines (Policar, The Daily Tribune, December 1, 2005, p. 3);
Suppliers of medicines and hospital equipment who had lost in biddings still able to get juicy deals from government-owned and controlled hospitals even as they maintain the high prices of products. (Baldo, The Daily Tribune, November 24, 2005, p. 3);
Unexplained wealth, filing false statements of assets and liabilities made by well-known public officials like Major General Carlos Garcia, who was handed down a guilty verdict by the court martial who handled his case, which leave a persistent question: Could he have amassed P300 million in hidden wealth without the participation and protection of his superiors, i.e. chiefs of staff or secretaries of National Defense who had the duty to review and approve all the requisite papers submitted by Garcia to effect the actual release of hundreds of million of military funds? (Maceda, The Daily Tribune, December 6, 2005, p. 5);
Extortion case filed by former Manila representative Mark Jimenez against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez in connection with the controversial contract of the government with the Argentine power plant company IMPSA, whose contract was reportedly marked with bribery ($2million allegedly went to Perez as his share) in exchange for a sovereign guarantee – and which also implicated the First Gentleman’s private foundation (Policar, The Daily Tribune, December 20, 2005, p. 6);
The anomalous P1.3 billion automated election vote-counting machines contract which should have been used in the 2004 elections and which prompted in Senator Joker Arroyo calling for the resignation of the remaining five Comelec commissioners in view of findings that the commission entered into a “fixed” contract with winner bidder Mega Pacific eSolutions, where Commissioner Abalos retorted, “We are not perfect at the Comelec; we may have mistakes but we are not a corrupt agency.” (Surbano, The Daily Tribune, December 15, 2005, p. 3); and
The P728 million and P1.1 billion part of the estimated P3 billion fertilizer funds allegedly ordered released last year by the Palace through the Department of Agriculture to help in bankrolling the campaign expenses of President Arroyo and her administration candidates. (Rosales, The Daily Tribune, November 29, 2005, p. 2).
It is no wonder that about half of Filipinos (52 percent) continue to believe that Mrs. Arroyo cheated to win the 2004 polls and anywhere from 47 percent of those in the Visayas to 63 percent of Metro Manila are of the opinion that the scenario most beneficial for Filipinos is for Mrs. Arroyo to resign. (Olaes, The Daily Tribune, November 22, 2005, p.6)
The problem of corruption in the Philippines, among the worst in Asia, has not been licked because the Arroyo government is seen as doing nothing about it, according to the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy. (AFP, The Daily Tribune, December 6, 2005, p. 1)
It is no coincident that the clauses “maintain honesty and integrity in the public service” and “take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption” should go hand in hand in one section of the Constitution. The former is the root through which the latter branches out as fruit. A government official who is not honest and lacks integrity cannot take positive, let alone effective measures against corruption.
Here’s the irony:
Executive Order No. 314 dated April 30, 2004 as amended by Executive Order No. 317 on June 8, 2004 (barely a month after last year’s election) creates the Presidential Commission on Values Formation headed by the President as Chairperson. This commission shall serve as the lead agency by which the government may work hand-in-hand with civil society and the private sector in the establishment of a strong foundation for moral value formation in the government bureaucracy.
The President who chairs this commission – isn’t she the same President who had a “lapse of judgment” and has been peddling her half-truths by avoiding a confrontation with the truth on the Garcillano tape controversy which has been eating up and using a lot of government resources?
Isn’t she the same President who continues to employ the services of a press secretary whose credibility and integrity have been thoroughly soiled by spilling the tape controversy at a time when nothing warranted for such information to be leaked out and then, surprised by the avalanche of negative repercussions, retracted and changed statements with such temerity and “kapal ng mukha”? A more noble government would have asked a Cabinet member to resign if he or she causes embarrassment.
Isn’t she the same President whose Palace issued brazen statements at the height of Garcillano’s “disappearance” that if the Senate so wants him, it should look for him, stamping its guilt for not doing enough to bring Garcillano to justice and rousing even more suspicions of actually being responsible in hiding him?
Isn’t she the same President who has made one faux pas after another in front of television cameras, no less, when sometime ago, she berated a hapless “whistleblower”, Acsa Ramirez, as an accomplice to a bank scam only to apologize a time later? The same one who announced the capture of an Abu Sayyaf Group leader which turned out to be only a lookalike?
Isn’t she the same President who is conspicuously in the midst of what seems to be conspiracies being hewed – at all costs – to allow her to retain power? Consider the series of events leading to her official announcement as last election’s winner: The Supreme Court’s decision to set aside the computerized counting in favor of manual counting. The admission of former Budget Secretary Boncodin on the diversion of public Agriculture funds that went into the campaign treasure of the madam. The controversial distribution of pay-offs to regional election officials. And then of course, that one monumental leading-by-one-million phone call.
Moral value formation? You wish.
My point is: If the Chief Executive of the land does not lose sleep over her personal integrity, more specifically the lack of it, and continues to believe the lies she spews in public, we cannot expect the lesser mortals of Philippine politics to maintain their own.
If the Chief Executive of the land scoffs at the idea of graft and corruption being commonplace anyway, we cannot expect the lesser mortals of Philippine politics to advocate effective measures against eradication of graft and corruption.
If the Chief Executive of the land has lost her moral ascendancy to lead, yet continue to cling to being intoxicated by power, we cannot expect the lesser mortals of Philippine politics to be our “knights in shining armor.”
And like many beautiful words in many beautiful literary pieces, the sanctity of the words framed in this particular section of the Constitution will simply be appreciated as a beautiful idealism in what was once a beautiful country turned ugly.
― But they were corrupt, Father!
― They were human, my child. And if we were to reject all worldly authority for that reason, we would have to reject everything: marriage and government and society; the family, the state, and the church. We would have to abolish the world.
- Excerpt from
The Woman Who Had Two Navels
by the late 1976 National Artist, Nick Joaquin
While reading Nick Joaquin’s THE WOMAN WHO HAD TWO NAVELS which was a Philippine Literature class reading project during one Christmas holiday, I chanced upon the above excerpt and I couldn’t help but smile as I correlated these beautiful literary words to my position on Article II, Section 27 which states that “The State shall maintain honesty and integrity in the public service and take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption.”
In literature, which is given definition as mirroring life, corruption could romantically pose as a forgivable, tolerable, even excusable human frailty – where it concerns the heart. Not so when it concerns the law.
Graft and corruption, as one and interchangeable phenomenon, is so widespread in this country that people merely talk about it with resigned acceptance as a way of life – common especially among those who have been sworn to uphold honesty and integrity in public service.
Webster gives the following definition: graft, “the acquisition of gain (as money) in dishonest or questionable ways or by illegal or unfair gain”; corruption, the “impairment of integrity, virtue or moral principles, or an inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery).”
In the Philippines, there are several areas where graft and corruption are known to be rampant. They breathe to life in the form of non-payment of appropriate taxes, misappropriation of funds for non-existent projects and payrolls, awarding and approval of government contracts, nepotism, extortion, bribery, and of course, changing election results.
Graft and corruption come in small and big packages. From the “lagay” system where ordinary citizens are forced to resort to illegal means of offering considerable amount of money to government officials lacking in zeal and professionalism in exchange for facilitating the immediate processing of required personal documents such as permits, clearances, licenses, up to the maze-like conspiracy to cheat the nation of its vote, graft and corruption has become an everyday fare. Take for example the current news accounts:
Taxi and jeepney drivers denouncing unscrupulous members of the Manila Police District conducting daily checkpoints in Sta. Cruz, Manila who they claim ask them to shell out from P20 to P50 extortion money (Bilowan, The Daily Tribune, November
24, 2005, p. 12);
Smuggled shipments of highly-dutiable goods being diverted to the Food Terminal Inc. where they are released under questionable circumstances and with the reported blessing of a very “influential person” known to everybody at the Customs bureau (Ching, The Daily Tribune, December 1, 2005, p. 12);
The instinctive wrongness in the budget proposal of the Department of Health for purchasing mosquito nets worth P280 million in its efforts to fight mosquito-borne diseases while only setting aside more than P3 million for the anti-malaria vaccines (Policar, The Daily Tribune, December 1, 2005, p. 3);
Suppliers of medicines and hospital equipment who had lost in biddings still able to get juicy deals from government-owned and controlled hospitals even as they maintain the high prices of products. (Baldo, The Daily Tribune, November 24, 2005, p. 3);
Unexplained wealth, filing false statements of assets and liabilities made by well-known public officials like Major General Carlos Garcia, who was handed down a guilty verdict by the court martial who handled his case, which leave a persistent question: Could he have amassed P300 million in hidden wealth without the participation and protection of his superiors, i.e. chiefs of staff or secretaries of National Defense who had the duty to review and approve all the requisite papers submitted by Garcia to effect the actual release of hundreds of million of military funds? (Maceda, The Daily Tribune, December 6, 2005, p. 5);
Extortion case filed by former Manila representative Mark Jimenez against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez in connection with the controversial contract of the government with the Argentine power plant company IMPSA, whose contract was reportedly marked with bribery ($2million allegedly went to Perez as his share) in exchange for a sovereign guarantee – and which also implicated the First Gentleman’s private foundation (Policar, The Daily Tribune, December 20, 2005, p. 6);
The anomalous P1.3 billion automated election vote-counting machines contract which should have been used in the 2004 elections and which prompted in Senator Joker Arroyo calling for the resignation of the remaining five Comelec commissioners in view of findings that the commission entered into a “fixed” contract with winner bidder Mega Pacific eSolutions, where Commissioner Abalos retorted, “We are not perfect at the Comelec; we may have mistakes but we are not a corrupt agency.” (Surbano, The Daily Tribune, December 15, 2005, p. 3); and
The P728 million and P1.1 billion part of the estimated P3 billion fertilizer funds allegedly ordered released last year by the Palace through the Department of Agriculture to help in bankrolling the campaign expenses of President Arroyo and her administration candidates. (Rosales, The Daily Tribune, November 29, 2005, p. 2).
It is no wonder that about half of Filipinos (52 percent) continue to believe that Mrs. Arroyo cheated to win the 2004 polls and anywhere from 47 percent of those in the Visayas to 63 percent of Metro Manila are of the opinion that the scenario most beneficial for Filipinos is for Mrs. Arroyo to resign. (Olaes, The Daily Tribune, November 22, 2005, p.6)
The problem of corruption in the Philippines, among the worst in Asia, has not been licked because the Arroyo government is seen as doing nothing about it, according to the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy. (AFP, The Daily Tribune, December 6, 2005, p. 1)
It is no coincident that the clauses “maintain honesty and integrity in the public service” and “take positive and effective measures against graft and corruption” should go hand in hand in one section of the Constitution. The former is the root through which the latter branches out as fruit. A government official who is not honest and lacks integrity cannot take positive, let alone effective measures against corruption.
Here’s the irony:
Executive Order No. 314 dated April 30, 2004 as amended by Executive Order No. 317 on June 8, 2004 (barely a month after last year’s election) creates the Presidential Commission on Values Formation headed by the President as Chairperson. This commission shall serve as the lead agency by which the government may work hand-in-hand with civil society and the private sector in the establishment of a strong foundation for moral value formation in the government bureaucracy.
The President who chairs this commission – isn’t she the same President who had a “lapse of judgment” and has been peddling her half-truths by avoiding a confrontation with the truth on the Garcillano tape controversy which has been eating up and using a lot of government resources?
Isn’t she the same President who continues to employ the services of a press secretary whose credibility and integrity have been thoroughly soiled by spilling the tape controversy at a time when nothing warranted for such information to be leaked out and then, surprised by the avalanche of negative repercussions, retracted and changed statements with such temerity and “kapal ng mukha”? A more noble government would have asked a Cabinet member to resign if he or she causes embarrassment.
Isn’t she the same President whose Palace issued brazen statements at the height of Garcillano’s “disappearance” that if the Senate so wants him, it should look for him, stamping its guilt for not doing enough to bring Garcillano to justice and rousing even more suspicions of actually being responsible in hiding him?
Isn’t she the same President who has made one faux pas after another in front of television cameras, no less, when sometime ago, she berated a hapless “whistleblower”, Acsa Ramirez, as an accomplice to a bank scam only to apologize a time later? The same one who announced the capture of an Abu Sayyaf Group leader which turned out to be only a lookalike?
Isn’t she the same President who is conspicuously in the midst of what seems to be conspiracies being hewed – at all costs – to allow her to retain power? Consider the series of events leading to her official announcement as last election’s winner: The Supreme Court’s decision to set aside the computerized counting in favor of manual counting. The admission of former Budget Secretary Boncodin on the diversion of public Agriculture funds that went into the campaign treasure of the madam. The controversial distribution of pay-offs to regional election officials. And then of course, that one monumental leading-by-one-million phone call.
Moral value formation? You wish.
My point is: If the Chief Executive of the land does not lose sleep over her personal integrity, more specifically the lack of it, and continues to believe the lies she spews in public, we cannot expect the lesser mortals of Philippine politics to maintain their own.
If the Chief Executive of the land scoffs at the idea of graft and corruption being commonplace anyway, we cannot expect the lesser mortals of Philippine politics to advocate effective measures against eradication of graft and corruption.
If the Chief Executive of the land has lost her moral ascendancy to lead, yet continue to cling to being intoxicated by power, we cannot expect the lesser mortals of Philippine politics to be our “knights in shining armor.”
And like many beautiful words in many beautiful literary pieces, the sanctity of the words framed in this particular section of the Constitution will simply be appreciated as a beautiful idealism in what was once a beautiful country turned ugly.
posted by joeylgarcia at 3:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home