What does it take to become a public servant?

We all know that with the elections closing in on us and political seats of power up for grabs, that the gloves are going to come off and the fighting is going to get dirty. This happens all the time in the Philippines. So much so that every time an election rolls around all we can do is pray for a peaceful election with less casualties than last time. It’s almost laughable that we have come to that – when we know we can’t ask for a dignified election where everyone sticks to the issues and doesn’t hit below the belt or worse, because we know that it’s just not going to happen. In the end we just hope less people die as compared to the last time we went to the polls.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the saddest part of all is that most of our politicians seem to have lost sight of what true public service is. Being a politician – on paper – is a thankless job. You get a meager salary, you are up to your eyeballs in problems, and you are constantly mitigating and juggling what you should and what you can actually do for your constituents. The only thing, theoretically, keeping you going is a true heart of service for the Philippines.

When you look at it that way it makes you wonder why anyone would want the job much less fight and kill for it. But the reality is our politicians don’t want these jobs for those reasons alone. Power, influence, and eventually payouts are what are enticing the majority of them. To ignore this fact is just plain ignorance. At the very least, if we know what they really want we know why they are fighting tooth and nail to get it.

Over the past few weeks Imee Marcos, Sara Duterte, and even Vice President Leni Roberdo have been drawn into the arena by a series of tweets, articles, and more which are really very simple and should never have gotten blown this much out of proportion. It all started with Imee Marcos’ claims that she graduated from Princeton and eventually University of the Philippines. Unfortunately for Marcos both educational institutions have come forward, amidst investigative review, claiming that she did not actually graduate from either.

While she may have attended one or the other, she has no diploma from either despite her saying vehemently that she does – at one point even saying “as far as she remembers she graduated” – who forgets whether or not they graduated from university? In either case – it could have ended there with people taking Imee’s omission (or mistake – however the spin wordsmiths want to play it) at that and deciding for themselves if they wished to continue to vote for her as a public servant.

However, to make things even more odd was that Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte came to Imee’s defense in what was probably the strangest way ever. She claimed that it didn’t matter whether Marcos had lied about the diploma because “everyone in this world is a liar” and that being one did not make you unfit for public office. She went to say that most politicians are liars anyway so she did not see why it was such a big deal.

Unfortunately it is a big deal. The issue of whether or not Marcos has a diploma is just a small bit of the bigger picture. But to come right out and say that if she lied it does not matter because honesty is not necessary for public office is both wrong and alarming. Despite the many things we gloss over when it comes to our politicians (and yes, a number of them lie at a distressing rate), we should never claim or accept that it doesn’t matter what a candidate says or does whether they are running for office or in office already. If we go down that path, it’s a road from which we’ll never return.

Currently we still believe (or pretend to believe at least) that a candidate’s character matters when it comes to electing our leaders. These past few years have been quite alarming in terms of what we have given up and just allowed to happen. We can’t fall into the trap that we all just stop caring because then we will have all lost.

I want to believe that our leaders – this administration and even Mayor Sara Duterte – still believe that people should be held accountable for their actions and even their words and not just when it suits them (because they are anti-administration), but all the time (both allies and enemies alike). During this entire debacle, Sara even fired harsh criticism out at the Vice President calling Robredo a fake VP with fake courage and essentially attacking her character along with those of her party mates.

Fortunately it looks like this word war is coming to an abrupt end as the VP says she won’t be engaging the mayor and as of yesterday, Sara’s mom Elizabeth Zimmerman has asked her to “shut it down” and stop this war of words with the opposition and she has said she will comply with her mother’s wishes. In her own words she’s packing up and closing the “Inday Sara Show.”

What’s the biggest lesson from all of this – we need to hold our leaders to higher standards and not just accept that things happen and we should just be okay with the status quo. Once we start demanding for more that’s when I believe we will get it.