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| Puede na ba yang RED? |
I grew up nurtured in an environment where truth is what my senses tell my conscience as the truth.
I distinctly remember an incident, after I passed the chemical engineering board examination with flying colors, when my pride was pricked by a comment from a street-wise uncle that placings in board exams can be bought.
Another incident happened when I started working in a multinational company. My immediate boss was exasperated why he could not get a discount from his son’s hospitalization. After I mentioned that his residence stated in the hospital records was in a high-end neighborhood, he forthwith altered his residential address in the record and got what he wanted, a discount. I was dumbfounded.
Later on, I began to learn that in this life what works is considered “true”. One can get government certificates crafted in Recto. Drivers’ licenses are faked; many public utility drivers carry traffic violation tickets that serve as temporary licenses, after their fake licenses are allowed to be confiscated and never redeemed.
This fakery goes up the ladder of the bureaucracy and the “smart” operators get away with it. Those who should curb the debauchery play along and are financially rewarded.
I believe this way of thinking and environment make the legal profession very popular in this country. The truth is not what conscience dictates, but what can be proven legally by evidence after a lot of hair-splitting and rationalizing.
Ordinances or laws are crafted in such a complicated and circuitous manner that will allow the initial intent of the legal document to be subverted by "smart" lawyers. Notice that there is even a law that allows private property to be taken over by “informal settlers” and the owners are even made to pay for relocating the illegal settlers.
I submit that this is the root of the new administration’s problem in curbing government corruption: the prevailing damaged culture and misdirected values have seeped from the lowest stratum of society and has pervaded the highest level of government.The great majority do not like what they see, but they feel helpless.
THIS CANNOT BE CORRECTED OVERNIGHT, NOR IN SIX YEARS.
I hasten to add that, since proper values can only be taught in schools and cultivated meticulously at home, this must be the rationale for the increase in school years of the Education Department and the Welfare Department’s huge cash dole-outs.
Education and poverty eradication are the proper steps in the right direction to curb endemic corruption - by the very roots. But how can we be sure that subsequent leaders, who may have benefited from the wide-spread culture of corruption, will allow this crusade to continue. If we fail to properly choose our future leaders, the situation may even worsen in the face of changing borders and globalization.
Let us close ranks and unite. Let us not recycle the leaders who have failed the nation. With Divine help it can be done!
