Separate Opinion
Government by the governed
By Isagani A. Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 20:43:00 05/17/2008
MANY YEARS AGO, AT A PUBLIC FUNCTION of the Supreme Court, I delivered a speech entitled “The Government by the Governed” where I said that our government was being run not by the public officials themselves but by the people they were governing. I said it was we ourselves, the sovereign people as the Constitution described us, who were the real rulers of our country through the men and women we had elected and the citizens they had appointed.
It was not an original thought, of course. But I thought it needed re-telling as a lesson in humility—and democracy.
I am proud to recall that after my speech, Sen. Emmanuel Pelaez approached me and said he fully agreed with what I had said. Several foreigners in the audience of that international conference asked me for copies of the speech, which made me feel 10 feet tall in my mind.
Looking back, however, I find I was too idealistic and confidently naïve. Considering the sad state of our country today, I feel that as its presumed governors, we are unworthy of our crucial task in the strengthening of our Republic.
The shabby evidence is the present public officialdom which violates the constitutional illusion that grandly proclaims: “Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives.”
The disenchantment begins with Malacañang, infects Congress and the courts, and spreads its contagion in the other levels of the government where service, whether elective or appointive, has become an opportunity for personal aggrandizement and not the improvement of our country.
President Macapagal-Arroyo’s title is itself in much doubt because of the Garci tapes. The Philippines is dismissed as the most corrupt country in Asia. GMA has refused to investigate many scandals that may involve her directly like the ZTE deal, the disposition of the P728-million fertilizer fund, the NorthRail and SouthRail projects, the Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard overprice, and other suspicious transactions. As AFP commander in chief, she has yet to expedite the delayed trial and punishment of many generals facing serious graft charges.
Congress is polluted with members who should be running from the police instead of for public office, for which they are totally unsuited. Box office popularity, dynastic ties, and guns and goons are the usual credentials of the legislators. The lower House is the kennel of Ate Gloria’s lapdogs and there are presidential wannabes in the Senate who are starring in TV commercials. Junkets and the pork barrel are still the stigma of both chambers.
The Supreme Court recently sustained a silenced official’s invocation of the President’s executive privilege, emphasizing technicalities rather than justice. Several members of the Court of Appeals are giving it a bad name. In general, judges in the lower courts do not enjoy the people’s confidence because they lack intelligence or integrity, in many cases both. Despite the deadlines fixed by the Constitution, many cases still take years, even decades, to decide, and often suspiciously in favor of the guilty.
Ordinary civil servants follow the example of their superiors and prefer private gain versus public welfare. There are “fixers” in every government agency; policemen and firemen have their own kind of graft; egotistical officials display their retouched portraits and uglify the environment at much public expense; oil companies sell for increased prices gasoline they had earlier bought for less, and the government allows them to conceal their books and how they are cheating the public.
Who is to blame for this moral, social, political and economic deterioration of the Filipino nation? One would cite President Arroyo as the foremost leader of the Philippines and its people. But no, it is not she but we, for we are the ones who have supposedly elected her. She is acting by our authority or with our condonation for her failures, abuses and shortcomings. Even as she rules, it is we as the sovereign people who can really govern her if we dare.
Unfortunately, we do not. We have failed to assert the constitutional principle that “sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them.” We have become not the source but the victims of government authority—and tyranny—because we have not summoned the resolve to be the righteous rulers instead of the regimented ruled.
We must recover our surrendered primacy to the false leaders who have sullied and betrayed it. We must reclaim the mandate we entrusted to them lest they continue to feed their insatiable lust for power and pelf. We must act now—after the meekness of the dormant centuries—to win back at last our inherent right to shape our own destiny for the good of the greater number and not the privileged few.
This is a responsibility we must discharge now with the boldness we have long deferred. It is like a time bomb that must be defused before it inevitably explodes and destroys us all. We must enforce our sovereign will against the scoundrels who have bled our country dry and wasted. This is a duty that can no longer wait to be performed.
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