Wednesday, August 27, 2008 Editorial: We're in deep trouble
YOU know that a country's leader is not in tip-top shape when news and claims of multi-million graft and corruption always crop up while all around you are images of poverty.
But you know the country's in deeper trouble when you read a news article entitled: "Gov't bodies to discuss proper use of car plates."
That news was dispatched by our Manila office and published yesterday. It was about political adviser and presidential legislative liaison office chief Gabriel Claudio recommending the holding of a dialogue on the proper and responsible use of special car plates by members of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC), Land Transportation Office (LTO), Congress, and the Cabinet.
The recommendation came after the LTO ordered the recall of special plates after a number "8" plate was involved in the ramming and killing of a security guard in Metro Manila, the driver of the car being just the son-in-law of a Caloocan congressman.
This alone gives us a glimpse of how sordid politics has become, so sordid, it's indecent.
Simple decency is expected of government officials, especially those up there among the "8" and higher plates. That simple decency includes taking care that one office is not besmirched by any wrongdoings, especially by people who are not even part of that office.
But we have long known that simple decency has already been lost. The incessant news about multi-billion graft and corruption, shabu smuggling, and used care smuggling all point to that.
The situation becomes chillier, however, when such decency is lost even in the more commonplace activities we are into, like driving cars and taking care of how our license plates are used (or misused). Indeed, it will be difficult to say no to millions of pesos, we're humans and greed does sometimes get the better of us especially when the offer is so irresistible.
Not that we are excusing the thieves in government, we're just saying, indeed, sometimes the offer can really be irresistible such that to say no will take a lot of integrity, honesty, and righteousness.
But saying no to the misuse or abuse of one's special license plates is something else. A license plate is a small privilege bequeathed on ones office such that abusing it becomes the height of immorality. This is taken along the line of, if you can't say no to something as petty as that, then you cannot be expected to say no to everything else -- from tongs from small-time last two financiers to hush money from big-time drugs and smuggling syndicates.
If a simple car plate with the special number "8" can be misused, then the position and perks enjoyed by being the congressman can easily be abused.
We shudder further when the likes of a political adviser and presidential legislative liaison office chief take up the cause for the miscreant and not for the office that has deemed it necessary to remind our officials of some basic rules in courtesy, decency, and yes, responsibility.
As voters, we expect to have put in power somebody who already knows what he's getting into. But yesterday's news shows otherwise.
