It times of deceit, the British author George Orwel said, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
We are in in that crucial or critical time, a revolutionary time as part of the truth telling in our society. It’s a crazy time, nobody knows if passing or failing the lie detector test will help in resolving the grand infection called corruption that has contaminated at least two-thirds of the government – the legislative and the executive.
The judiciary’s skin, by the nature of its separate and unique role, is not in the game of the overwhelming rot of the time. It doesn’t build roads or bridges, much less engages in flood control. Alas and alack, the Supreme Court has a nagging issue, too and is adding cortisols, literally and figuratively, to the nation’s health.
It’s been a long time when the SC has been found to have factually erred in coming with a legal ruling on a political issue based on a non-existent news report. Why it is taking so long to issue a new ruling on the same issue is not known. Suffice it to say, that the SC word is final and is, therefore, infallible. Period.
The nation, given its circumstances, needs greater assurance of certainty and fairness.
Times like this call for a precision surgery to excise the tumor that has been the cause of a malevolent, debilitating disease of the nation. In political lingo, there’s a need for a Machiavelian leadership and decision.
Unfortunately, according to the second highest official of the land, now on a world tour of some sort, that political quality is mothballed at the top. What we have, so the world would or should know, is a president who doesn’t know how to do his job.
So what happened, it turned out that the executive secretary appeared to have more cojones than the principal and called a branch of government, namely the House of Representatives, to clean up its own house, a mantra if not a metaphor of what’s taking place or hidden in plain sight among some, maybe many, of its members.
In another feeble attempt at public relations, the president was portrayed as being teary-eyed at the extent of corruption in government. He should have wept. It’s doubtful if Machiavelli was in the same emotional high or low when he wrote The Prince. Maybe the president simply, habitually romanticized about it but could not bring himself to act the way his idol acted.
As things are, or as a veteran senator spilled AND REBUKED it in privileged speech, a top government executive has been engaged in a questionable ethical practice. The president is supposed to have sufficient intelligence fund to know what’s secretly taking place in his neck of the woods.
In fairness, the President wants a better result in his investigation of the horrendous and massive anomalies that have flooded the agencies of government, leaving many in flooded areas wet and wild while holding on sandbags.
It seems he needs a few good private sector people, not anyone in government, to do and honest- to= goodness job. He even turned down a sincere offer by a local government executive to help in the pursuit of the crooks, the bad and the ugly in public service. Apparently, all in government has fallen short of his standard to qualify for the task at hand.He has three years more to go and too early to say he has reached his lameduck status as a president-politician. Besides, he’s eyeing a graceful exit in 2028. As of this writing, the President is yet to announce his impeccable choices.
As far as we are concerned, John Stuart Mills’ idea that our representative government will be hobbled by dumbs is way off the mark In fact, it’s the other way around, given how creative politicians, government engineers and other bureaucrats have created a web of deceitful ways to build ghosts flood projects, pay them under the noses of supposed to be nosy bean counters over and over, and plan to wreak more havoc in government finances by their creativities.
Mills would have turned in his grave for lack of true foresight. Machiavellie, too.
We’re still in luck though. The Senate has a new leadership, surprised, that will compel a decisive action on the current public works anomalies. It doesn’t mean the senators are safe by any means. A recent hearing in the H ouse has squealed hoary and sacred details tying popular or notorious names as the case maybe.
It also raises hopes that the mothballed impeachment case against the vice president will get a rightful, dutiful attention. Regardless of the outcome, conviction or acquittal, the vice preside nt will be forced to reduce her overseas exposure because of the new development. Politics is a joke. It’s easy for political fortune to change hands,majority to become minority and vice versa.
The future, near or far, for the legislators in the Lower and Upper House, even their exact numbers, is uncertain. Hopefully, the new commission about to be named, will ferret out all truth. After all, truth, whether it’s dystopic or ectopic is supposed to set us free.
At the very least, it should make Filipinos wiser when they go to the polls and why the country is unnecessarily burdened by 17 trillion in debt, perhaps growing, and why billions of funds continually pour into ghosts and substandard projects.
History is supposed to teach us a lesson. Humanity is about that or we’re doomed.
