EDITORIAL - What's in a name?

Apparently stung by unflattering portrayals of Philippine legislators on TV and film, Pampanga Rep. Aurelio Gonzales Jr. filed a resolution in the House of Representatives asking the local TV and movie industry to stop typecasting members of Congress as crooks.

Gonzales has a point, albeit a small one. It is indeed unfair to portray all congressmen as villains, if only because of the fact that, all things being equal, not all congressmen could be considered crooks.

It is common knowledge that there are many congressmen who have led exemplary lives and against whose faces you cannot hold up any candle of contempt. The problem arises from the fact that, by the same token, there are indeed also many who fit the TV and movie portrayals to a tee.

It is these less than worthy members of Congress who give their calling such a bad name and who undeservedly make their upright colleagues reason to be uncomfortable, even resentful, of the sweeping characterizations.

So how do we solve the problem? Obviously, the resolution of Gonzales cannot be the solution. Even if it is possible, which it is not, to gag all unflattering characterizations of congressmen, that will still not resolve the underlying reason for the characterization.

Not calling congressmen crooks will not transform the crooks among congressmen into saints. They will remain to be crooks even if everybody stops portraying them as such. In other words, a crook, by whatever degree of anonymity, will still be a crook.

In fact, stopping people from giving unflattering descriptions of those congressmen who deserve to be characterized unflatteringly may only encourage the swelling of the ranks of those so characterized.

If, on the other hand, there is an earnest desire on the part of congressmen to be rid of naughty appellations, then the way to do it is not to stop the unflattering characterizations but to reform their own ranks so as to give people absolutely no reason to badmouth congressmen.