MONTH of May has ended. However, the campaign for graft and corruption awareness must go on especially so that this month of June is the month when our children would be going back to school and learn more knowledge.
It must be inherent in our ideals to pursue educating our people of the dangers that graft and corruption would do to our society. In Islam, there is zero tolerance to such acts that relate to any means to grease the economic wheels especially in the government.
It cannot be denied that anywhere in the country, including Muslim Mindanao, there are people who would resort to graft and corruption. What is very sad in this fact is the inability of our country’s torch bearers to bring people to justice. We only see those whom we wanted to see or notice and we exclude those we don’t want to see.
What shall we do then? As ordinary individuals, how do we guard our own moral plane?
My religious friend once told me that fear of God must be taught in the younger years of our children. Hence, educating our children about doing good must really start from home. It is our families’ responsibility to start enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong from the tiniest act at home.
My friend is right in forwarding that.
From home, we have seen some parents who would bribe their children just do the favors they want them to do. This alone is a manifestation that some parents have really taught their children the wrong way to do things. Instead, we parents must have inculcated the values of respect and authority to them so that they would perform favors without anything in return.
Fighting graft and corruption in Islam is an integral part of the teachings in the Holy Qur’an and Hadiths. I am also sure that in all other cultures and religions, these acts are discouraged if not totally condemned.
Interesting, isn’t it? We are a country of religious peoples yet graft and corruption became a normal everyday transaction in some of our government offices.
Last week, when I was filing important documents for a significant government agency, I was attentive with the instruction of a first-come, first-served basis arrangement the office has posted on its office walls.
To my surprise, there were those who came later than I did yet they were served ahead of me. After few minutes of observing the flow of people, I noticed that the numbering from the entrance area was based on a "palakasan" and "padulasan" system.
This "palakasan" and "padulasan" system may not be harmful to some but it is definitely demoralizing. Where is justice in this system? By now, you have your own answers to this question.
Again, as responsible individuals, let us enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong. Some government offices might have failed to see the system implemented in the lower rank and file.
It might be too little to notice to some but these kinds of acts may ripple to bigger and higher waves of graft and corruption once tolerated. In fact, big things start from smaller things, right? Until when are we going to allow this menace in our system?
Now that schools are about to open again their doors to educate our children, I would like to hope that our respectable teachers will start inculcating the values of respect and morality in every transaction, big or small, so that our children will learn from what they see in school. Schools have to be the partners of our homes in shaping the moral planes of our children.
Let’s condemn the act of greasing the economic wheels, now!