Thursday, October 23, 2008 Destroying the Filipino image By Anthony Golez The right move
I HAVE a young professional friend who works for a huge international investment bank in Singapore as its assistant vice president, and who recently visited Manila for a short break.
He was happy to inform me that he is one of the three contenders vying for the promotion to vice president of their company at such a young age of less than 40.
Having all his credentials and educational background, he still feels that he is not going to get the promotion because of the widespread perception about Filipinos abroad as being a race that mastered the art of thievery.
With all the news spreading around in the country and with all the allegations being thrown at one another before national and international televisions one after the other, my friend cannot blame his bosses to feel that way.
My friend's story is an eye-opener. We seldom go abroad and many do not realize that the world look at us as a country of "cons." We hear a lot of stories that every time Filipinos enter shops in a foreign land, we are usually not minded by the storekeepers because they doubt our mere presence there. Why does the rest of the world treat us this way?
Undoubtedly, the Philippines enjoy too much democracy and freedom in many aspects of our daily lives. It has become a tradition or an acceptable culture that we can shout anything about anybody whether good or bad in order to be talked about.
As a matter of fact, our consciousness has already become calloused to even ask for any proof whenever we hear news about somebody. This has become part of our country's political melodrama while majority enjoy watching the endless debates on who's telling the truth and who is not. At the end of the day, the better communicator wins, or the person who holds the microphone last will earn more points in their verbal battle.
While we have the responsibility to safeguard our laws and constitution, we should always be circumspect on how we should react to these pitiable actions that ruin our country. While it is always correct to be vigilant of government officials or employees who have destroyed the trust of the people by committing acts of graft and corruption or grave abuses of their authority, we should always be guided that we have our laws to observe and due process to respect. These are the armaments, as enshrined in our Constitution, of every Filipino who is accused by anybody for wrongdoing.
Our laws protect us from any allegations through our judicial courts. This is the right forum in which all evidence are appreciated. Anybody who wants justice to be served must use this avenue, and not any other, or else we may now question the intentions of the accuser.
Since we know for a fact that politics and politicking are part of our daily entertainment, we must also be vigilant as to the nature and intent of the accuser.
Many of us, especially politicians or trying to be politicians, always want to be perceived as crusaders against corrupt practices or abuses, and they use our freedom of expression through media as their mouthpiece. But if their intention is just to gain media mileage or one-minute fame on live broadcast, then this will altogether bring our entire nation and our race down.
"Over-vigilance" without the end in view of charging suspects in our courts can lead to useless overreaction and gossiping. Our love for country would be transformed into self-flagellation, making ourselves bleed while letting people around the world watch our identity and nationhood die.
We need to remind our leaders to be responsible of their actions and allegations lest we will all be losers.
Just this week, the members of the Malacañang Press Corps were requesting the Palace to comment on the news that there were known critics of the Arroyo administration who have said that the Philippines stands to lose future US government assistance (particularly from the Millennium Challenge Corporation) due to its worsening corruption record. When asked for the basis of their statements, they referred to the prediction of some private American analysts in the US. Now, the question is, is this vigilance or "over-vigilance?"
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) has not issued any official statement yet for year 2009 regarding a change of the status of the Philippines in their accounts.
For 2008, because of milestones in government's fight against corruption, we were given the "compact status" which makes our country eligible for the millions of dollars that will be given to us to further strengthen our fight against graft and corruption.
During the same year when MCC elevated us to a compact status, MCC CEO John Danilovich highlighted that the Philippines "demonstrated commitment to tackling difficult challenges and improving the lives of people."
With this fact, then why do we have to inflict harm on ourselves again? Are we not supposed to unite as one nation against those who say things against us just like any other country that would defend themselves from such insults?
In the history of our country, the Arroyo administration has the highest spending on programs against graft and corruption. The Ombudsman budget has more than doubled since 2002 to P947 million in 2007, thereby increasing the number of prosecutors from 52 to 104, and having a three-fold increase in the number of their investigators.
The conviction rate of our anti-graft courts rose to an unprecedented 60% in 2007 from 6% in 2002, while charging "big fishes" in the Sandiganbayan to include a former President. Lifestyle checks on government officials which were never implemented since their creation in the 1950s were only implemented now in this administration which prosecuted many in our courts today.
Let us know our facts and be circumspect to everything that is thrown at our nation. Let us not allow anybody to destroy the Filipino image.
