The Search For An
Honest
Man In The
Philippines
Edwin A. Sumcad,
PAR Columnist
Just recently, the pig-fat or pork barrel
corruption in the Philippines had a nasty turn. In a rare appearance at TV prime time,
President Benigno Aquino III [Noynoy] had to explain to the public his massive
presidential pork barrel – actually, another form of thievery otherwise
legalized by cohorts in the Philippine Congress, as Aquino’s Disbursement
Acceleration Fund [DAP].
If we talk about the size of this huge
congressional largesse ritually and politically given to Noynoy in a Silver
Platter budgetary offering from those notorious bargaining-bootlickers in
Congress, even if the whole pork barrels of Senators and Congressmen are summed
up all together, still Aquino’s pig-fat is so enormous that the politicians’
P10 billion loot pales in comparison … just a drop in the bucket, so to speak!
“I am not a thief!” Noynoy fumed mad with
rage at his distractors. Well, obviously
that presidential outburst was suspicious and foreboding, if not clearly cynical.
What Noynoy was trying to say was that he
was an honest man. That makes thievery of public fund more portentous and
covertly, more menacingly threatening.
Unfortunately, aside from what it says on
the record, i. e., on record, former Speaker Manny Villar had pointed an accusing
finger to Noynoy as his very dishonest rival candidate for president in May
2010 in connection with the theft of public funds in the Appropriation Act
passed by Congress – published corruption shown in road constructions leading
to Hacienda Luisita, just to mention one of the really big ones so far.
Similarly, opinion writers and several
newspapers in the Philippines, especially the Daily Inquirer, one of the
leading dailies in Metro Manila, had written and published the contrary to what
Noynoy was saying that he was “not a thief”.
Several community newspapers in the U.S.,
particularly in Southern California like the Philippines & Asian Report, are
merely echoing the sound-bytes of corruption in the Philippines, although
editorial analysts here in the United States are generally no less incisive or
global-wise perhaps even more insightful or razor-sharp compared to their
counterparts in Metro Manila. They are
not beholden to Political Dynasties that hold the Philippines by the nose and
run the country anyway they want.
For
me as a PAR columnist and Internet editorial writer, my take on this issue is
very simple: The truth is, if only an honest man could be found in the
Philippines, that man could lead the transformation of a rotten society and
liberate the people from moral bankruptcy.
But it is only an altruistic philosophical
search common to life-scoffers everywhere called “critics” or “philosophers”
in their futile quest for the truth if an honest man really exists, especially
in the Philippines. Centuries ago Diogenes,
the Cynic spent his entire life walking the streets during daytime up to
late at night with a lighted lantern searching for an honest man he never found
until he died in Corinth in 323 BC.
Diogenes’ brand of philosophy is to
criticize the social values and institutions of a corrupt society, which is
exactly what development journalists like me do in our written and published
editorial reports and/or critiques.
For example, Diogenes and I are similar in
that sense of criticizing corruption but at the same time he and I have a
mountain of dissimilarities separating us. This contrast differentiates one from the other.
But first let’s know more about this noted
philosopher of the ancient time: Diogenes was born in Sinope [Turkey]. Reports
had it that he died of self-induced asphyxiation simply by cynically holding
his breath to the end. [1] He was in the company of his two dogs when he died
because as a cynic, he believed dogs are better company than humans. Humans are “liars” when they open their
mouth, while dogs are truthful -- dogs bark only at the truth.
Although Diogenes and editorial writers
like me are both critics of a degenerate society worse than Sodom and Gomorrah,
the marked difference between me and the likes of Diogenes is that cynics
criticize out of spite, while my kind criticize out of hindsight.
Diogenes’ kind is spiteful while I consider
the likes of me in what is now known as grassroots
journalism, as expediently useful as the immense value of the freedom of
expression and whatever the immeasurable worth of the 4th Estate to
our modern society are to this day.
For instance, I and my kind geared our
criticisms towards nation-building. My
kind is a clarifier of historic events; in my own particular editorial critique,
I heat up a little bit the fats of decision-makers that rewrite history. The
idea is to melt and liquefy them and filter or separate their impurities, i.e. ego-massaging,
self-enrichment, artificial work-over, blind-folding and propaganda, dishonesty,
corruption, etc., to make the point of national concerns clear and pure for
ordinary people to understand and react accordingly.
To illustrate: In May 2010, Filipinos thought
they found an honest man by electing Noynoy president like when they elected Cory
Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo presidents. This has to be clarified by
pointing out the fact that such decisions were costly mistakes the nation had
to pay dearly. The terrible consequence of that miscalculation, dishonesty and
corruptions in all gamut of society, was the sucking and the slurping of the
lifeblood of the Filipino people by political vampires, turning the nation into
one of the poorest in Asia.
It is almost impossible to successfully deny
that a number of Filipinos although not yet that too many of them, have started
to realize Noynoy is NOT the “honest man” they have been looking for, one who
is honest enough to “transform society”
to a better one. Instead, as corruptions
continue unabated, Filipinos are experiencing a transformation of society from
bad to worse … not to a better society but to a bitter one. I am referring to
the changing of Philippine society which Noynoy himself dishonestly speechified
[orally falsified in public] and lately, falsely barked about [lectured] in his
2013 4th SONA.
And so the Filipinos’ search for an honest
man goes on. The futility of finding an honest man and turtle-driving in the
humid, suffocating heat of the traffic-snarled streets of Metro Manila when
EDSA demonstrators are not using them regularly, are almost the same -- you
don’t need to be there to breathe a lot of carbon dioxide into your lungs to
know that heavy pollution and pervasive desperation are in the air.
I myself am disheartened every time I write
about the futility of searching an honest man in the corridor of power more
particularly in the Philippines, a country not only economically emaciated and marginalized
-- and its once glorious eminence in the gallery of developing nations
miniaturized by dishonesty and moral debauchery in the eyes of the world -- but
a country that missed the golden opportunity to develop itself into a model
nation in Asia as the IMF and World Bank once envisioned, because this Island
Republic was totally devastated by Corruption.
The reason for my disappointment is hard to
question; it is unshakable, although many times I challenged it myself
believing that for the fallen there is always redemption. But the ugly truth
behind it stares back at me menacingly … it was as strong as Fort Knox –
impregnable, invulnerable and unassailable.
Another way of saying it to drive home this
point is that if it is hard to find a needle in a haystack, it is even harder
to find an honest president in the Philippines since the time of President
Ramon Magsaysay fifty-six years ago. Today to find an honest man among the “trapos” [rags, discards, garbage or
disposable politicians] in the Philippine Congress and in the corrupt
Judiciary is not only much harder but impossible … a dead end the unlikelihood of
which is comparable to the impossibility of the crow turning white.
On point of public enlightenment, I am likewise
disappointed to discover that only few scholars know what this search for an
honest man actually means, even as I lament the fact that inside and outside
the Academe even if scholars and professors knew, they are bereft of that
civic-mindedness society needed badly – which is the lack of eagerness and
enthusiasm on their part -- to share with the public gratis et amore what they knew unless they are paid for their labor
under the atmosphere of academic freedom they enjoy. Thus regrettably, to discover what lies
behind this search for an honest man and understanding what it means, is
practically nil to the layman.
I learned the true meaning of this enigma
– the metaphorical appeal of this philosophical conundrum if you may -- many
years back when I studied Victorian Literature in the Faculty of Philosophy
& Letters, University of Santo Tomas, the first and oldest university in
the Far East ran by The Dominican Order of Preachers [Ordo Praedicatorum], a
Catholic institution of higher learning seven years older than the United
States’ Harvard University.
It was in UST – by the way, it was neither
in the graduate school of law and practice of law or specialized studies of
IMF-World Bank monetary economics, UN-Asian Development Institute that I have
struggled in years to have, nor in the United Nations where I have been for
more than a decade and a half -- where I discovered the euphemism and
dysphemism [cynicism] of orthodox philosophical languages and expressions as
they apply to real life. It was part of the study of Literature and Philosophy
& Letters where I earned a diploma inscribed in Latin.
In deference to scholars and secretive
scientists who we know hardly communalize what they know for reasons of their
own, I want to share – at least through this column and through other global
venues of expressions and communication that writers of my kind avail
themselves of -- my little light of knowledge … share it with the world at
large, just for the pleasure of sharing, and nothing more. You will find this sharing of light of
knowledge I am talking about when you search for and click my name in Google or
Yahoo.
Right now, this is what I am sharing with
you: The reason this honest man could not be found is because in real life, he
does not exist -- at least that’s what the philosophy of cynical demagogues like
Diogenes is all about.
Since there is this oblique belief that in
real life an honest person does not exist, the people, especially the most
dishonest of them all, became CYNICAL – the case of Diogenes, the Cynic.
The misanthropic or the scornful and the
sardonic, would demonstrate by walking the streets holding a lighted lantern
looking for an honest man like Diogenes did in a manner of speaking, to prove
that society is hypocritical.
Unfortunately, what is NOT known of Diogenes,
the Cynic, was that he and his father had been accused of “embezzling money from the Corinthian mint”. [1] It turned out that
they themselves were among the most dishonest people of Corinth that the
townsfolk despised.
Feeling outcast, Diogenes became more eccentric
and cynical; he lived publicly in a huge tub he had improvised as a living
quarter. He lived in that container alone by himself in the company of his two
dogs while searching for an honest man he never found. That’s how the world came to know him as Diogenes,
the Cynic.
It is in this sense why like Diogenes Filipinos
likewise appear cynical and spiteful.
They have been looking for an honest man perhaps even knowing that such
man does not exist. To spite the world in this manner was exactly what Diogenes
did to the Corinthians.
But unknown to many, the real cause of the
problem was the fact that Diogenes let corruption control his life as Filipinos
let corruption control their life. In
spite of his philosophical wisdom, he did not resist the temptation, and
instead, accepted corruption as a way of life.
In the same way, the majority of the
population of the Philippines, especially the mammoth “bakya” crowd that decides the future of the country in the
parliament of the streets [EDSA], had tolerated Political Dynasties to control
their lives, and accepted corruption as a way of life. In fact they elected Benigno Aquino III
president who is currently the head of all Political Dynasties that through
years of exploitation and corruption had emaciated the country to penury. In
this case, the accusing finger of error points back at them.
The trusting Filipino people, including
those with good intentions, are hardly aware of what they have elected to the
presidency for the next six years. The
truth is, it is really not about “who”
they elect, but about what they elected, is capable of doing, or incapable of
doing as president whom unfortunately they thought was capable, sincere and
honest. Sadly all of these were missing.
What they elected as president was a
political magician who abracadabra them into believing that he was against “publicly” committed anomaly of his
Administration, and that he was fighting corruption for the good of the
commonweal. I emphasized “publicly”
because corruption is definitely okay so long as it is hidden from the public.
Thus because of his dishonesty, Diogenes
was cynical when he said he was looking for an honest man that does not exist.
So was Noynoy when he said he was “not a
thief” -- which, to me, clearly sounded cynical … an illusion if not a delusion
-- when in fact the record says the contrary, and the looting and thievery of
public funds, corruption and plunder captured and reported by the Media, prove
otherwise.
© Copyright Edwin
A. Sumcad. Access November 11, 2013.
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