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Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Carvajal: Carvajal: In aid of the common good
By Orlando P. Carvajal
Some of my friends have wrongly branded me as pro-administration for not asking for President Arroyo’s resignation. This is not half as bad as some media personages criticizing the Church for not condemning Gloria unequivocally, one even going to the extent of calling the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines evil.
The trouble with these people is they think the battle lines are drawn between the opposition and the administration. They cannot be more wrong. The choice is not between being on the side of the opposition or being on the side of the administration. Instead, the battle lines are drawn between the common good and the vested, selfish, interests of the ruling elite, which consists of the opposition and the administration.
Cardinal Vidal, in a recent interview, hit the nail on the head. The Garci hearings are not going anywhere because, to paraphrase the cardinal, these are not being conducted in aid of the common good as our people in government are tasked to do. All the signs point to the ruling elite having the common good farthest from their minds in conducting the hearings. The opposition simply wants to use the Garcillano hearings to further their move to oust PGMA while the administration just wants to dig in and defend its position of power at all cost.
The Garci hearings are not even done to ferret out the truth and in aid of legislation. As the cardinal has also pointed out, many in the opposition, according to former Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, have called him.
Yet all we are getting from these people are denials and nobody is trying to figure out who is lying. One wonders, for instance, why only Garcillano’s declarations are considered lies and the denials of those whom he listed as having called him are not?
The fundamental problem of the ruling elite is their hidden assumption about where the common good is going to come from.
The opposition is convinced the common good can only come if they took over the reins of government while the administration is equally convinced that the common good can only be achieved if they hung on to power. The ruling elite think, presumptuously, that they are the solution to the country’s problems, when, unfortunately, they are the bigger part of the problem.
The side of the majority of Filipinos demands that issues should be picked, discussed, investigated, and concluded in aid of the common good and of nothing else. What is crystal clear at the moment is that neither the opposition nor the administration is working for the interests of the Filipino people. The ruling elite, consisting of both the opposition and the administration, is sweeping the common good aside in order to advance their selfish vested interests.
(December 14, 2005 issue)
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