Editorial: Humility, impunity

AS THE parody that is Senator Tito Sotto continues to unravel before our eyes, two words come to fore: Humility and impunity.

More particularly, the lack of humility in our halls of power, and the impunity by which those in power sneer and scoff at ethics as a concern is becoming more apparent day by day.

No rancor is apparent, just defiance and sheer audacity.

“Nagtatagalog ba si Kennedy?” Senator Sotto said before smirking and laughing in reaction to yet another charge that yet another speech spoken in Tagalog was actually just a translation of a speech of Robert Kennedy.

The laugh of impunity, we say, as we tremble at what else those in power can laugh off just like that.

More scary as this develops while an exclusive news by ABS-CBN placed some substance into the dubious pronouncements soon after the charter plane of Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse M. Robredo was reported to have crashed: that of the securing of vital documents from Robredo’s office and condominium unit.

What kind of government have we allowed to develop through the years? We can never tell.

But then, we’ve seen the worse, when more than 50 were mowed down with bullets and crushed within their cars at the height of the reign of the Ampatuans in 2009. That Cabinet undersecretaries can go about trying to enter his direct superior’s condominium without even the family’s by-your-leave or the court’s go-signal is nothing compared to this. That a senator can plagiarize each and every blog and speech and laugh it off with a challenge to prove whether there is indeed a Tagalog-speaking Kennedy is nothing compared to this.

But all these, in their own way are manifestations of that impunity, the impunity which drove us to the polling stations to vote for the present President Benigno C. Aquino III, but which we are realizing now was not enough to bring back the high esteem public office once occupied.

This realization becomes even more grating as we recall how Robredo was lost to us and how he lived up to what public servants should really be: humble and at the beck and call of the public.