Politicians should be banned from BSP

Isn’t it sad and ironic that the Boy Scouts of the Philippines (BSP), a heretofore prestigious organization that trains the youth to be good and morally-fit leaders, is now controlled by politicians who are not? Before each troop meeting or activity, the boy scouts recite the Scout Oath and the Scout Law.

The Scout Law enumerates the qualities of a boy scout: “A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent.”

Every good boy scout tries to live by that oath and law.

Do the adults who run the BSP adhere to these qualities? The very first qualification of a boy scout is trustworthiness. But if the recent revelations about shady deals that the BSP has entered into are true, it seems that the adults who control it now cannot be trusted.

The BSP national president is Vice President Jejomar Binay who is now being investigated by the Ombudsman and the Senate for corrupt activities, among them the deal signing over a one-hectare BSP property in Makati to Alphaland, a land developer.

Former vice mayor and BSP senior vice president Ernesto Mercado told the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee that Binay got P200 million as kickback from the deal.

Binay and Alphaland deny this. Does Binay qualify to be a boy scout under the Scout Law? Judge for yourself.

Binay has been national president of the BSP for the past 20 years now, although its constitution limits a president to serve for only two years. When Binay became BSP president in 1980, he changed its constitution to allow him to be president for life. Since then, except for a two-year interval when former Bulacan governor Roberto

Pagdanganan was the president, Binay has been national president of the BSP and shows no sign of leaving.

Also, since Binay was appointed officer-in-charge of Makati, he has converted it into his little kingdom. He made his wife succeed him as mayor, then reassumed the mayorship himself, then made his son mayor. He has established a family dynasty in Makati. Besides his wife and son serving as mayor, his two daughters are members of Congress.

Why does Binay love the BSP so much? Because like Makati, the BSP is like a gold mine. It has plenty of real estate properties that, under Binay, it has been selling, according to Mercado. Where do the proceeds go? The two million boy scouts and the rest of the public do not know because Binay allegedly refuses to have the Commission on Audit audit its finances in spite of the fact that the Supreme Court has ruled that the BSP is a public corporation and therefore should be audited by the COA. Under Binay, the BSP also tried to grab a part of the Mt. Makiling campus of the University of the Philippines, according to UP officials.

The boy scouts, who gave the organization its reputation because of their good deeds (a scout is expected to do at least one good deed every single day) and their moral uprightness, have no say in the running of their own organization. Running the BSP is a group of politicians and their allies, who pretend to be boy scouts by wearing the scout uniform of khaki shirt, shorts, neckerchief and knee socks during BSP ceremonies.

Young scouts cannot help but giggle during these occasions because the old men look funny in shorts that expose their knobby knees and skinny legs. These old men control the BSP and its billions of pesos worth of assets. The young scouts are not told about these assets, what are being done to them and where or to whom the proceeds go. Only the old men who control the BSP know. Yet it is the reputation of these young scouts and their organization that are used to acquire these assets that are used to benefit only the clique of old men who control the organization, not the young scouts.

Not one of the old men running the BSP is a young scout. The BSP organizational structure should be reformed so that half of the board is composed of scoutmasters and Eagle scouts. They can then tell their troops what happens in those meetings. The youth should be allowed to decide what to do in their own organization. They should also elect their own leaders. The BSP, after all, is a training ground for future leaders. If our present leaders were good boy scouts, then this government would be run like heaven.

I used to be a boy scout myself. I learned much from being one—not only how to tie knots and make a fire without matches, but most of all how to be a good, helpful and

God-fearing citizen. I loved the campings and hikes and camaraderie, the story-telling and the singing around campfires. I never thought that the BSP would degenerate into its present sad state under its present leadership of politicians. Politicians should be banned from the BSP. They cannot be trusted.