Honesty

Early this month the Kasadya sa Downtown was launched. The month-long night market along Colon Street, which used to be the city’s busiest business district, opened to the great delight of people looking for low-priced but interesting items to give as gifts. The street stalls teemed with anything from clothing to knickknacks to electronics to food.

On opening night, as I walked through the entire stretch of the street market, a display of footwear caught my eyes. I was particularly interested in the rubber sandals that had a name brand on them. Those were fakes, the woman vendor volunteered to tell me.

The price was quite cheap, and still the woman was willing to bring it down some more for me. I kidded her that it could get me in trouble with the police if I bought a pair. She smiled and assured me it was not a problem because she had a protector, an agent of the government office that was supposed to go after fakes of legitimate brands.

I was taken aback by the candidness. The woman then went on to tell me that their group regularly paid protection money to the agent. The guy would not come to get the money, though, she said; their leader would bring it to him. It would look bad if the agent himself came to collect.

The woman admitted that the protection fee was quite a burden for her. She had to take it from whatever little profit she made. But she had no choice; if she didn’t pay, she could not sell or else her merchandise would be confiscated. Worse, she could be fined or arrested and prosecuted.

But she had good news. Their protector was giving them a leeway – just for Christmas. They would not have to pay him for the duration of the night market. She could then save a little to buy a good Christmas meal for her family.

The woman was an ambulant sidewalk vendor at other times. She got her merchandise on credit from a Taiwanese importer. She was powerless, she sighed, and really needed protection so she could make a living.

Many of us complain that inequality and corruption are pervasive in our society. We complain of public officials that use their positions for their own personal gains. We accuse big businesses of bending trade laws and of wanton profiteering.

And yet, we tolerate or even feed to the very ills we complain about. Many of us don’t have a choice. Others don’t give a damn.

Dishonesty seems widespread in our society, including among ordinary citizens. Little dishonesties have alarmingly become an acceptable social trait. Many children today, learning from their parents and other adults, cheat the storekeeper, cheat at school, even cheat their own parents.

That woman vendor on Colon Street is a caring parent for sure and perhaps a good neighbor, too. But she is a dishonest merchant, cheating the legitimate brand owners by selling fake merchandise. She is all the more dishonest by feeding to the dishonesty of her supposed protector, who cheats the public of its trust in the system.

Many of us cheat. We know that cheating is wrong, and we cheat not necessarily because we’re dishonest people. We cheat when we think nobody will know or that our cheating will not hurt anyone in any significant way.

Very few individuals, if at all, will take the trouble of returning a hundred-peso tax refund inadvertently issued in their names. Even those who never pay their taxes probably won’t. They never asked for it, they’ll say, and the revenue office’s negligence is not their fault.

If the coin machine at the phone booth gives back your five pesos after you’ve successfully made a call, will you put the coin back in? You’re must be one with a halo over your head if you will.

Most people who steal won’t take something directly from another person. Stealing from an impersonal entity like the government or the big businesses doesn’t seem dishonest to them. Except, of course, when they’re caught.

Person-to-person and face-to-face, most people try to be honest. Many won’t do the obvious or big-scale cheating. It’s the impersonal, little cheating that they casually do.

Our concept of dishonesty is a complex issue. The bigger circle of cheats to which many of us belong will condemn a snatcher who looks his victim in the eye, poke a gun or knife at the poor fellow, and then takes his or her money. And yet we are not as appalled by a crook who wears a suit and speaks good English, who robs the entire nation with pyramiding scams or defrauds the people of billions of money on ghost government projects.

Almost no one who steals or cheats thinks of himself as a bad person. Captured petty thieves reason that they did it because their families are hungry, or a child or an elderly parent is sick. Often they feel that society has cheated them and owes them something.

And there are the big-time criminals – drug dealers and smugglers – who will swear that they, too, are only trying to make a good life for their families. And, indeed, many of them are dedicated family men. Some are respected members of the community, donating big sums to charity, and are even devoutly religious.

The great majority of us are not really dishonest by nature, but, from time to time, we all need to be reminded what honesty is. It does not make us any less guilty simply because our dishonesties are minor. The habit, once engrained, will be limited only by opportunity.

We can each get ourselves out of the problem and, instead, be part of the solution. We can try to be honest in our own small ways, at all times. All of us can do it — government agents, businessmen, ordinary citizens — whether at home, at work or wherever.

“Hingpit gyud unta ang kasadya sa tanan kun wa’y natikasan,” the old man behind me at the footwear stall at the night market in Colon grumbled as he turned away. Indeed, our celebration of Christmas would be totally joyous when our minds are clear of guilt from having cheated anyone. As it is, however, we all have yet to give ourselves one most precious Christmas gift — a coherent sense of honesty.