All cheques and outstanding balances

Anyone who tells us that the Senate or Congress would collapse because of a scandal certainly exaggerates.  I’ve personally experienced being in a better and more positive Senate inquiry where the Senators involved were not intimidating, insulting or merely looking for sacrificial lambs to humiliate or annihilate for their own political fame. Last Monday, I had the pleasant experience of being invited to a Senate Inquiry on the effects of the Coconut Scale Insect. Senator Cynthia Villar who was chairman of the Senate committee on agriculture was on time, in charge, all business and yet remained courteous and considerate of the people attending the inquiry.

Aside from her respectable decorum, what struck me about Senator Cynthia Villar was her pragmatic and transparent attitude in solving problems and addressing public expectations. The inquiry essentially revolved in her statement: “In the absence of anything lets do everything.” Villar certainly had no patience for complicated jargons or for people hemming and hawing about real solutions. During the inquiry, Senator Ralph Recto also pitched in “to provide the quorum” but also helped facilitate the discussions to insure that even little “farmers” were heard. At the end of the day, it was worth driving all the way from Lipa to the Senate; because I learned first hand that my effort to go out and vote was not a waste of time because “My Senators” work!

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According to my friend Mayor Alfred Romualdez, what the pork barrel scam and the Napolist controversy reveal is that we have a serious problem in the current system of government. If all the allegations and accusations are true, and if billions of pesos can be easily diverted and stolen, it is clear that there is no longer any real “checks and balances” in the Philippine government. From my vantage point it seems that public office in the Philippines has become all about “cheques and outstanding balances.”

Putting my cynicism aside, it seems to me that very few people realize that the Philippine government is in a moral and operational crisis. On one hand we see approximately 90% of our national leaders under a cloud of doubt or suspect of their integrity. Anyone who steps back from the firing line will learn a few things. Those who are clearly not guilty and not suspect, or have kept a tight ship of their political office and reputation have not been mentioned, spoken of or talked about. As the “Caesar’s wife principle” teaches us — you must not only be clean; you must be perceived to be clean.”As a reward they have been spared the indignity of suspicion and accusation. 

In contrast, those who have a reputation for being dirty, being involved with dirty politics and politicians, or those who take part in the mud slinging are now part of some lists concerning corruption or ill refute. They say you are judged by the company you keep and the Bible tells us: “From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” Some people may not be guilty by “act” but association certainly makes them stink. I am also reminded of what some eastern astrologists wrote about people born in the year of the Monkey. He said that while they may not all be thieves, they are all liars. Maybe he was talking about political monkeys and not Chinese astrology monkeys.

At the end of the day, what ought to bother us all is the temerity, the audacity, and the impunity by which many of these politicians talk as if they were God’s gift to us and address us like we did not have the mental or moral capacity to judge if they were morally or financially corrupt or not. I for one agree to conducting lifestyle checks on ALL elected officials and their relatives, I support having all of them undergo psychiatric test, and I support having all of them go through a battery of lie detector tests just to determine who are the real “AMLAHYER.” It is unfortunate that we as a people can be so vigilant, vindictive and cyber bully against middle class college educated individuals who pick fights with “small people,” but when it comes to our national leaders, we watch or listen to them as if we were merely entertaining ourselves watching a reality program. Perhaps this is the reason why they say: “We get the leaders we deserve.” 

Until they all die out, the good news is that public indignation has caused a major change in our politics, which is to tentatively end at least one form of “pork barrel” for legislators. Unfortunately that major battle and “tentative victory” has been diverted into a political manhunt of the present administration instead of a “holy war” against the hogs in Congress. The P-Noy administration may have meant well in “locking on target” in order to show real results for their “Tuwid Na Daan,” but their big oversight or miscalculation was the ricochet of their accusations against their own party mates as well as “officemates.” Sadly their bad gamble or miscalculation is now at the expense of our war to reform Philippine politics and politicians. Instead of our desired institutional reformation, what we have is a social circus, a reality TV material and still not enough truth to determine if the pork barrel scam will send all the guilty people to jail, and if Congress will come to terms with the fact that they are legislators, not the Executive nor are they the Judiciary. This is the operational crisis that also needs to be addressed. When political patronage results in the loss of check and balance, we the people need to intervene because no one else will. 

 We still have to remove as well as deal with presidential pork barrel, as well as the various pork barrels of local government officials from governors, mayors, down to barangay officials. There is much to be done if We the People are to get the right leaders we want and not just deserve!

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