EDITORIAL - Shameless opportunism

It’s not against the law, a Malacañang official said yesterday in defending the fielding of President Arroyo’s son Mikey as nominee of a party-list group that supposedly represents security guards. Besides, Ricardo Saludo said, why single out the President’s family? The implication is that there are many others doing it, anyway. Among them, it can be noted, are Mikey Arroyo’s fellow nominee in the same group, Ang Galing Pinoy Party: Lubao Mayor Dennis Pineda, the son of the President’s staunch supporters Lilia and Bong Pineda.

The Pinedas, who gained notoriety for supposed jueteng activities in Pampanga, could simply be following their leader in using the party-list system as a back-door entrance to the House of Representatives. The president of this weak republic is supposed to lead by example not only in upholding the rule of law but also in avoiding the exploitation of gray areas and loopholes in existing laws and regulations to make a mockery of democratic institutions. Instead what we are seeing is the opposite.

Driving through the traffic-choked streets of Metro Manila, one can see what this attitude can spawn. In the absence of traffic signs, stoplights or traffic cops, drivers try to get ahead of others by going against heavy traffic in the opposite lane. The result is often a swastika-type gridlock with everyone stuck. Putting one over other drivers in such a situation is not illegal, but the result is chaos. Applied on a larger scale, in many aspects of national life, that attitude has turned the country into what one international news magazine has described as Asia’s laggard. Years earlier, another international news magazine put it in equally unkind terms: the Philippines, according to the article, is a country that is in a hurry to go nowhere.

If the only example being set by the national leadership is shameless opportunism, it is up to the Commission on Elections to prevent the shameless from turning the party-list system into a farce worse than it already is. Even without this latest controversy, taxpayers have already wondered why millions are spent each year for the salaries and perks of party-list congressmen who are anything but margi-nalized, when there are numerous legislative committees that can represent the concerns of genuinely margi-nalized sectors. Comelec officials have said they will soon issue guidelines that will purge the party-list system of certain nominees. The purge must be thorough and a message must be sent: the brazen abuse of this system has gone on long enough.