THERE will still be crimes, there will still be criminals, and then there will be the corrupt who will refuse to budge. But ordinary Filipinos already feel the difference. It may just be a feeling, but we all agree, taxi drivers are kinder, honesty is the norm, government workers are more caring.
Just a year before, you wouldn’t associate the cord caring with a government worker. Yes, this may hurt, but that is a fact that the majority of Filipinos will attest to. Truth hurts, but truth when acknowledged also heals. Just like admitting that corruption has already become the norm.
Simplistic, you may say, but that is also a factor in why crime proliferates. Many who have seen and met Filipinos working abroad attest to industrious Filipinos are. But when they are in their country, balasubas is a word that can apply to many. For why will they not be balasubas, when those who rule over them are just as balasubas.
There is no incentive to do good. Even the nearly 30 taxes automatically taken from you can hardly be seen in terms of government service but are very visible in the SUVs and mansions of government officials. So, why pay proper taxes?
Then, we have Davao City, where when government said smoke in designated areas, Dabawenyos merely asked where the designated areas are. When government said obey speed limits, majority slowed down and watched their speedometers. When government said stop lighting up firecrackers, we got the quietest Christmas and New Year celebration ever even on its first year. Why is that? Simply because we see government at work.
There’s the Monday food line for the very poor outside the city hall. There’s the Lingap para sa Mahirap that even cash-strapped income earners have availed of for their medical and hospitalization needs. There’s the Central 911 for all other concerns, and a lot more that have been put to light and talked about during the election campaign period.
No, we are not a docile people under anyone’s whip. We are just citizens who saw a partner in government, and so we all helped. For an ordinary citizen, the most basic way of helping government is obeying laws.
But everywhere else, government has been abused, and so we have a Philippines that looks good in policies and in numbers, but where people are all shouting: Robbery! Starvation! “Erosion of faith and trust in government – that is the real problem that confronts us. Resulting therefrom, I see the erosion of the people’s trust in our country’s leaders; the erosion of faith in our judicial system; the erosion of confidence in the capacity of our public servants to make the people’s lives better, safer and healthier,” President Rodrigo R. Duterte said in his inaugural speech.
Long before that, he has said that all he can offer is common sense governance. Actually, that is all it takes, because government officials are by our constitution, public servants. But no, in the decades past, we the people are the servants who served masters in government.