The Struggle for Good Governance

After 2 years of working for the government, and a decade of pursuing what I'd like to call my "dream job", I find myself at the crossroads of battling perspectives. One way says, there is hope. The other route offers a more negative inclination to that almost surreal and bitter reality that is: there is no way our country is going to rise above corruption and that all the efforts of the present administration to fight it is nothing but a staged farce; a soap opera designed to lure the public into believing that YES, our savior is here at last: Bright days ahead for the country.

Let me leave the issue about the pork barrel and the "Napolist" to the expert solons of the legislative branch, (I'm damn sure the great Greek Athenian and Statesman Solon must be rolling in his grave now, having used his name to refer to our "honorable" senators) who I'm damn sure can handle it will all due prudence and wisdom. Leave it to the irony that is, 12 of the members of the body conducting the legislative inquiry are actually implicated on the scandal. Dear friends, that is the gruesome reality that we have been fated to endure as citizens of this blessed country. 

Allow me to ponder on what's more tangible, what we, as public servants and as ordinary citizens of this god forsaken country encounter every day: The constant tussle between principle, character, and vested interests. Of course we’ll always have that eternal excuse of fighting for our own survival. The “Me” against “You”. Lest we forget what we stand for, rather what our/your department/agency stands for.

The struggle for good governance is a struggle from within. For how can we lead other people to that narrow path of righteousness if we keep on swaying the other way? Take the case of the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) for example. To say that the SK only serves as a breeding ground for corruption or future corrupt politicians is a fallacy. It is only when you corrupt their innocent minds that will make them what we are all scared they will become.

Corruption takes on different forms. It doesn’t only take embezzlement of public funds or a plundering government official to rape a country’s economy and its people. In philosophical, moral or even theological discussions, corruption may be defined as a deviation from an ideal. It can take as simple as coming in to work at 10 am and leaving by 3pm while taking a whole day’s worth of pay to something “petty” as pocketing a dime out of an activity intended for the public or something far more impressive like an old government employee who prides himself with his cunning mischievous ways and expects you to respect that he has in fact set a precedence of moral impunity.

I do not know how long the fires of idealism would burn for me. I do not know if 5 to 10 years from now, I will no longer be the writer of this piece but a subject of it. But if I do drown with that overflowing river of complacency and decadence, tap me on the back and slap me with a quote or 2 from this article while kicking me on the nutsack.

I remember a line from Conrado De Quiros’ “The Idealism of the Youth” that says “There are many pitfalls along the way. In this country more than others, those pitfalls are everywhere waiting to waylay you. Chief of them is the criteria of success this society will inexorably impose on you. Criteria that have to do with how much wealth and power you have accumulated. You have neither, you will be judged a failure. You want neither, you will be deemed obscure.”

The struggle for good governance is a struggle from within. It does not depend on whether or not those three senators (and the rest of them guilty) will be jailed or fed to a colony of fire ants. It is within amongst us, ordinary citizens and public officials, slowly rising and taking on the responsibility of our calling, of our oath.

Only then can it be won.