THAT’S right, threat, with an h, to good governance.
One is the lack of integrity among public officials. Watching SolGen Jose Calida’s interview on CNN Philippines I squirmed at how Ms. Pinky Webb was like rolling her eyes, embarrassed for Calida who coldly dismissed allegations against him as hearsay. He insisted on legal correctness and refused to see the lack-of-honor issue of the multi-million-peso contracts his company got from a government of which he is a high ranking official.
Many public officials get low scores in ethics. They like being called “honorable” but they never resign out of a sense of honor when they violate high (beyond-what-is-legal) ethics. They dismiss allegations of unethical behavior as politically motivated and challenge their accusers to sue them in court.
If this were to happen in Japan the person concerned would have already resigned. Not in the Philippines where what-are-we-in-power-for is still the mantra of arrogant and insensitive public officials.
Another threat is President Duterte’s double-standard. (In fairness he did fire or force to resign erring friends and former classmates whom he appointed to high positions in his administration.) I can understand him seeing this from another lawyer’s legal point of view. But he said he would fire officials for even just a whiff of corruption and there’s more than a whiff here.
Besides, Calida just did him the favor of filing and getting a favorable judgment on the quo warranto case against the former Chief Justice. The President should snuff out any whiff of corruption on his part by asking Calida to do the honorable thing which is to resign.
A third threat is the lack of humility of many public officials as most recently exhibited by Secretary for Budget and Management Benjamin Diokno. He ought to have realized as soon as people voiced out their hurt feelings that “crybaby” was a bad mistake. It was insensitive of the plight of the poor who are negatively affected by the TRAIN Law. Instead, therefore, of adding insult to injury he should just swallow the bitter pill and apologize for the hurt feelings he caused.
Understanding is a function of the heart not of the intellect. Unless he apologizes, there is no way wounded hearts can understand any of his lame excuses (for saying “crybaby”) and his explanation about how short-term sacrifices have to be made for long-term gains.
We must raise our voices against this triple threat to good governance. We must insist that our officials live up to one (not double) high ethical standard of public service and have the sense of honor to resign for even a whiff of unethical behavior and the humility to apologize when they hurt people’s feelings.