The blurring
of the difference between public interest and private interest
has encouraged corrupt practices, dishonesty, and abuse of power.
The fact that this incident happened right in the Department
of Justice is an indication of how serious the problem is.
It appears
that this is not an isolated case. Law practitioners admit that
the practice is prevalent in many agencies of government. One
lawyer admitted that his firm also “suggests” drafts
of decision. However, he says it is done with finesse. “Tentative”
drafts are emailed which can be edited by the official. They
certainly don’t use official stationery! However, it does
not change the fact that as private parties, they knowingly
breached an important bureaucratic norm.
There are
loud calls for sanctions to be imposed on the private lawyer
who dared to perform a public duty which favored his client.
I call for
sanctions on the public officials who carelessly surrendered
their public duty to private parties. This shows utter ignorance
of a fundamental principle in public administration.
Looking for an honest bureaucrat
Four hundred
years before the birth of Jesus Christ, Diogenes, the cynical
philosopher, walked the streets of Athens, carrying a lamp in
daylight. When asked about his strange behavior, his reply was
that he was looking for an honest man. All that he could see
was corruption and thievery, according to him.
I recall
that Francisco Tantuico, former Chairman of the Commission on
Audit installed a statue of Diogenes and his famous lamp in
the COA grounds. Perhaps, all government offices should have
a statue of Diogenes in their grounds?
It has been
two thousand years since the birth of Christ. What if Diogenes
were a Filipino? Would he have found an honest public official?
My answer
is that Diogenes would have looked hard and long. After all,
our country is considered the most corrupt in South East Asia.
We are desperate
for honest role models—people the young can emulate. Just
when the public thought that honest and courageous public servants
are a threatened species, they found one in the person of Major
Ferdinand Marcelino.
Those who monitored the congressional hearings, heard his voice
on radio, saw his face, and read the newspaper accounts, immediately
saw that perhaps all is not lost. One can be in government and
remain honest.
Someone
who personally knows him told the story about attempts to bribe
him when he was in Mindanao during the controversial 2004 elections.
He resolutely returned the bribes which were sent to him two
times.
I believe
that Major Marcelino is not the only honest official on the
face of the Philippine earth. There are still many of them out
there—unrecognized, unheralded and unknown by the public.
They plod away at their duties even as some of them become accidental
heroes.
How many
auditors have been threatened and eventually murdered because
they dared expose corruption? How many judges have been shot,
local treasurers killed, and military officers murdered when
they stumbled on massive corruption? How many soldiers have
been imprisoned when they could not take the evil that men (and
women) do?
People are
debating whether Major Marcelino should be publicly recognized
by civil society organizations. Our young need to continue believing
in heroes. They need to be encouraged to aspire for public service.
When
I took up graduate studies in public administration, one of my
earliest lessons was on the “ideal type bureaucracy”.
We studied the German sociologist Max Weber’s model of the
ideal type bureaucracy and bureaucrat. Our professor, Dr. Raul
P. de Guzman warned his students that the model was an ideal type
and does not necessarily work in real life, especially the Philippines.
Nonetheless, Weber’s ideas has influenced concepts about
what a government bureaucracy should be and how a bureaucrat should
behave.