No room for corruption

Power corrupts,” is how you began and ended your characteristically insightful and felicitous editorial, “Ben Diokno’s ‘political tool’” (12/22/17), on Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno’s hypocrisy.

I was in power from 1986 to 1992. Was I corrupt?

My children should be reminded that what Lord Acton actually said was that “power [only] tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” And that in my six years in power, I never validated what Oscar Wilde said, that he could resist everything, except temptation.

In my first week in Malacañang, someone called offering P3 million up front and P3 million when a certain shipment I was to facilitate arrived. I said “sorry, Mr. Marcos does not work here anymore.” In my first week in the Senate, somebody said a wealthy businessman would give me P50,000 in cash, no receipt, at a time when I was to take home P14,612.50 monthly. I told him where to go.

R.A.V. SAGUISAG, Palanan, Makati City