Professionalism

Jacque Barzun, French-born historian and philosopher,    describes a professional as someone who does his job, even when he may not want to. And in the past weeks of the impeachment trial, I’ve experienced and seen professionalism displayed.

First, on a personal level, three weeks ago, as myself and senior correspondent and ANC’s resident legal analyst Lynda Jumilla covered the impeachment proceedings against Chief Justice Corona, I was quite sick. My family knew that I wasn’t well by the fact that I didn’t work out at all that week — I’m a creature of habit and every morning I start the day with a short circuit routine at the gym in our condo. I have to be quite unwell not to do my routine. So, during that week, no workouts and I’d drag myself out of bed, head to the law office to do my case conferences and pleading reviews for the morning and then afterwards go to the Senate for a five- or six-hour shift covering the proceedings.

Covering the impeachment proceedings is, at least the way I do it, not an easy matter: you have to listen and watch the proceedings while at the same time researching — with my notes, books, or via the Internet — legal matters that crop up, as well as anticipating issues that relate to all manner of law whether it be, among others, constitutional, criminal, tax, banking or evidentiary. This will sound corny but I take very seriously my responsibility to explain the legal issues as clearly and concisely as possible to help viewers of the proceedings, particularly non-lawyers, make sense of the trial. This may sound similarly cornball but I view the coverage of the trial as a historic matter, and believe we in the media are scribes and analysts of a crucial event in our young nation’s life, which is the first impeachment trial of a chief justice. And, hopefully, the very first impeachment trial that will be completed. Meaning that we get a verdict — whether guilty or not guilty — and there are no walkouts, street protests, etc., that will shortcut the proceedings.

So for me, the impeachment trial has an educational and institution-building aspect, and I feel privileged to be able to cover it. Consequently, feeling a little sick wouldn’t — and didn’t — stop me from doing my job. I raise this not as a matter of self-praise because I actually felt guilty for not being at my best in terms of health but rather as a reminder that sometimes we do have to power through so that we can get the job done. Of course, health is always a priority and if I felt that I was in any way endangering my health, then I wouldn’t go to work. That said, I’ve always followed the lead of my parents who, unless they couldn’t get out of bed because of the seriousness of their illness, would always go to work.

And this applies as well to our family life. I know that sometime we men think that we can be stoic at work, struggle through minor illnesses and stress, and then at home we allow ourselves to be overgrown babies and just lie in bed at the merest hint of discomfort. But family life requires as much — if not more — perseverance and dedication. Even at home, we do have to power through minor discomforts so that we can spend quality time with out families. I’m sure many fathers will recall times that they’ve brought their wife and kids to the mall despite a minor sickness, sometimes just keeping quiet about it so as not to undermine the enjoyment of the family. That’s professionalism in a family setting. 

I got another to see another example of professionalism with the testimony of Mr. Garcia, the president of PSBank. By way of context, the Senate Tribunal issued a subpoena to the branch manager of PSBank’s Katipunan branch, to bring to the impeachment court, among others, information and documents relating to the alleged dollar accounts of the Chief Justice. In the normal course of events, bank officials would simply heed the Senate’s subpoena; however, under R.A. 6426, which is the Law on Foreign Currency Deposits, under Section 8, disclosures of information on these accounts — which the law treats as absolutely confidential — without the written consent of the depositor, subjects the person providing the information with a criminal penalty of imprisonment of up to five years. So it was surprising — and in my view commendable — that instead of the branch manager, the actual president of the bank went to the Senate. He explained to the Senate Tribunal that he did so in order to protect the interests of their 600,000 depositors and their nearly 3,000 employees. And that if any criminal liability was to be borne, he was willing to do so because he was the head — and thus the leader — of the bank. This to me falls within the concept of true professionalism. Who wants to have the threat of going to jail for five years or to be held in contempt, and also jailed, by not providing records of dollar accounts? Obviously, no one, and Mr. Garcia’s willingness to go to the Senate and face the possibility of imprisonment is professionalism of the highest order.

Finally, I’m hoping that this ethic of professionalism will be instilled in our youth. Unfortunately, since everything comes to them so easily — information, communication, social networking, is at their fingertips — and since they did not have to go through the struggles of martial law and the OPEC oil crisis, they have a very different culture and mindset. I worry for my own young kids because I see some of our Filipino teenagers without the sense of discipline and willingness to struggle through difficulties that were hallmarks of our own parents, who survived the ravages of war, and who tried their best to bequeath these virtues to their children. So maybe if honor and patriotism are standards that are too lofty and ephemeral to inculcate, given an increasingly jaded generation, then, at the very least, I hope that the next generation will learn to be, in the very best sense of the term, professional.