Losing fight

So many wrong-doings, corrupt practices, anomalies, misdemeanors, misconducts and dishonest acts exposed or unexposed, previously or currently being committed by public officials or private individuals no longer shock or scandalize people. These acts or omissions seem to have become normal parts of the system and considered the “right” and “proper” conduct such that those who really deport themselves correctly and properly and who do not get rich in office are the ones ostracized and treated as “weird” or “foolish”.

This hapless nation has fallen into its present deplorable state simply because many of those in public service have been convinced of the idea and thus have made up their minds that money begets power and power begets more money as shown by the many glaring examples happening all around them coming from the powerful, the influential and the noveau rich both in and out of government.

The culture of corruption has unfortunately been ingrained in the minds of our public servants because it has been shown since the time of Marcos up to the present that corrupt acts and practices more specifically the crime of plunder pay and pay handsomely. They are all have as their best model the pardon of a convicted plunderer even before he could serve one single day of his sentence simply because he once occupied the top post in the land and still retains some political clout.

People in government from top to bottom have been emboldened to engage in all sorts of money making deals by exploiting whatever decision making power they have in the transactions that pass through their hands because they have seen that no one especially the big fishes have so far been caught and even if caught, still manage to slip through the net. They have as their model the “architect” of the P728 million fertilizer fund scam whose flight is an implied admission of complicity but who has not been charged up to now because our Ombudsman chose to wait for his indefinite return to afford him due process that may just end up in a whitewash. Had this guy known that he would be coddled and housed in a hospital suite rather than detained in a Wisconsin jail even if comparatively more comfortable and livable than the local jails, he would have returned earlier to enjoy his celebrity status until his case is edged out of the limelight by a more sensational exposes.

Before him was a “Comelec Official” of the “Hello Garci” fame who went into hiding at the height of the dagdag bawas scandal in the 2004 elections which he was known to have engineered. He returned only when the furor has died down and when nobody seems to be interested anymore on the truth or falsity of whatever he will say because the issue was rendered moot and academic by supervening events and because he threatened to implicate other politicians.

The problem of graft and corruption in this country will be insoluble and may even worsen because all the previous exposes have been kept hanging without satisfactory closure by the use of political strategies that prevent full blown trial. Besides those who know something about rotten deals in the government have learned that shutting up is a better choice than blowing the whistle. That choice is clearly exemplified by Neri who has been rewarded with a lucrative and highly privileged position by simply clamming up and hiding behind “executive privilege” as against Lozada who decided to tell all about the “tongpats” and fat commissions in multibillion-peso deal but now finds himself jobless and hounded by so many legal entanglements with the government.

Hence in all cases of corrupt acts and practices the standard reply or defense of those implicated is a vehement denial followed by a menacing challenge to their accusers to “prove it”. To make their profession of innocence more credible they usually declare that their “conscience is clear”.

The big problem here about invoking a clear conscience is that the notion of conscience is loosely used without fully understanding that “conscience is the judgment of the intellect on the goodness or evil of an act performed or to be performed. Conscience depends on truth; that truth precedes conscience thus conscience must respect the truth. When the truth about the reality of things is not respected, the subsequent practical judgment of conscience is false”. In the present setting especially in our government where there seems to be so many obstacles to right judgment like moral disorder (“dysfunctional” is the term sometimes use), or poor moral education or bad habits and vices, one does not seem to care anymore whether something is actually right or not. There is no more awareness of doing something wrong so the possibility of reacting or repenting has become minimal. This is indeed harmful and a big setback in the fight against graft and corruption.

Note: Books containing compilation of my articles on Labor Law and Criminal Law (Vols. I and II) are now available. Call Tel. 7249445.

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