“LET'S be the change that we want.”
So said once by Mahatma Gandhi, which means that before we cry for change, demand from others to change, let us first change our ways of changing people and order.
It was Mahatma Gandhi who popularized this which became the dogma of peace makers around the world. What he really meant by it was that we must pay attention first to the inner self before we attempt to change others, the world. For him, in order to make effective change in this world, we must first alter our personal ways, values and mindset so we can be the model of the kind of change we cry for.
In this light, I find it despicable that while the Bacolod City mayor and colleagues, and so with officials in other local government units (LGUs) in the province and region, are burning limbs and eyebrows to enforce health protocols, intensify vaccination campaign and recoup local economy to ease the hardships of the people almost a year and a half of pandemic, some small cliques of ambitious politicians, perennial political losers and their partisans are busy bad-mouthing incumbent LGU officials and vilifying their projects and services.
Such mindset, attitudes and ways undermine, worse, contradict, the very change they cry.
They cry for good, transparent, corruption-free governance. Have they themselves not been part of such institutions? Have they pushed for the desirable changes, changes they claim they alone are capable, when they were there?
They cry for a new breed of leaders to run the city and who can make real change, yet have they ever asked themselves why they want to bring in people who have really no positive track records in good and participatory governance, whose concept of development is to flood the city with resources from immoral, decadent and anti-social revenue-generating activities, which destroy the foundations of family life and society?
Now that they are out of authority and without power, including those who dream of embracing the same, they chorus for change. Why? Simple and clear. The change they cry is nothing but an insatiable desire to return to power, power which to them is so vital in keeping themselves in the altar of ego and hell.
I suggest they have a lot of self-examining, self-criticism to do. I know there are a number of them who are brilliant leaders and have noble and lofty goals; they are just obscured by the company they have chosen to be with. Well, wake up fellows. Be the real change that you want to be.
I have really nothing against those who wish to have such power and will fight for it even in their lives. It’s their right. And I can and will support them, provided that their reason for so is not for their personal enrichment and status quo, but for public interest and safety, and a better society and humanity.
My former boss, retired Department of the Interior Local Government undersecretary and now top executive of multinational Zuellig Foundation Austere Panadero, once told us in our division evaluation and planning conference that one of the best ways in improving the performance of the agency or unit we belong is to locate its strengths and improve them, and the weaknesses to correct them constructively, and put in place overall systems that will ensure the sustainability of good performance operations. That is the effective organizational development management.
To pursue otherwise, especially fault-finding and blame-seeking, doesn’t help anything good in governance.
A colleague cleric once told me, to correct alleged wrongdoings with much worse wrongdoings is to destroy the beauty of creation.
Nothing personal. Just a perspective.