Limits of subservience
The actions of the congressmen vying for the speakership of the Lower House are uninspiring to the people and demeaning to them and politicians as a whole. Their eagerness to get the presidential endorsement is even embarrassing the president who has to time and again announce his “hands-off” position on the speakership.
Then, there is the eagerness of some of newly-elected government officials to shift allegiance to a supermajority just after the elections to curry potential favors from the administration. They surely aren’t getting these politicians the respect of the people. There are already enough politicians and government officials who have totally surrendered their integrity and self-respect in the past few years as bad examples to our youth to make Rizal squirm in his grave.
Subservience means servitude, submission, and willingness to obey unquestioningly. All of these are not flattering definitions. There are excusable or pardonable subservience due to particular circumstances. A person whose life is totally dependent on the master is a “natural slave” who will do anything for him.
There are also instances when their whole livelihood is dependent on the master, as they say “kapit sa patalim” that makes subservience excusable. Then there are those vanquished in battle who have to show total subservience temporarily, or be put to death by the victors. All of the above are excusable, but are our congressmen and other politicians in these same particular situations to embarrass even the president in their zeal to submit?
There are factual and historical downsides to subservience to both the leaders and the subservients. It blindsides leaders to their errors and the potential bad consequences of their actions because the actual results and happenings are not rightly reported back to the leaders.
It distorts information flow and feedback, so the usual control mechanism doesn’t work properly. Management, which thrives on correct information, cannot plan, organize, implement, and establish controls based on wrong information. Subservience also creates injustice for all the workers and sabotages the merit system as it hides the true state of affairs. It makes the whole concept of good corporate governance unimplementable in the organization.
The phrase “cordon sanitaire” came about in the French Revolution because the French monarchs were so unaware of the real economic and social conditions. The fawning government bureaucrats and aristocrats shielded them from the people’s sentiment and this led to the French Revolution and the beheading of many of them. Ages ago, when I was a high school teenager, my uncle, Carlos P. Garcia, was president of the Philippines. I use to go to Malacañang Palace on weekends and special occasions.
I would overhear the talks in the family rooms of how well he was doing and that he would get re-elected. But I lived in a small house away from the palace and took jeepneys and taxis, mingled with classmates and friends, and walked the streets of Ascarraga and Avenida to see movies. In the two years before the election, I knew he was getting very unpopular and would probably lose in the election, but one would never know it if one would just listen to the talk in the palace.
So, what are the limits of subservience? Aside from the excusable subservience I earlier mentioned, the limit is actually self-respect and integrity. Not many people may pass this test and I would not be one to demand it of them since we cannot know their circumstances. But I do admire those who do pass this test, which includes some of our current elected officials, among them congressmen, senators, justices, and other present and past government officials.
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