CORRUPTION
in the manner with which we use it
in the National Dialogue
as citizens
is usually implied to be
a political malaise.
Thus,
that same word,
when in the forums of the Republic
the issue of the popular will
as regards corruption
is - in every manner - heard,
bears with it
this weight of civic belief -
that corruption
is "political".
And so -
Our genuine representations in the State
whose particular politics - must - be relied upon
to hammer and craft a policy on this matter (of corruption)
find themselves cast on the same boat
with the disingenuous.
Without the public trust,
the politics of the Republic can not work
in the manner it is supposed to work.
(Because
the public interest
- is -
this public's interest.)
And dirty politics
will indeed
creep into the Republic
to cheapen the regal mantle
of public service -
the public
and the Republic
be damned.
So what is corruption? Certainly our Nation must consider this issue as an event - for the life of our Nation is more permanent than the Phenomenon of Corruption. And this is the truth.
We were not always overly anxious about corruption till it became a life threatening sickness in the Republic.
Poverty and corruption seem to be in a death spiral because the labor of our Nation translate not or is either dissipated or ignored by the unsavory politics that - we, the people - are supposed to own (i.e. exercise a proper civic ownership) in this Nation.
Were we not a participatory democracy, everybody should be free to exculpate political responsibility from the people (and divest popular government of all its virtue).
AND were we not a Republic, that same "freedom" (to willfully deny the character of our citizenship its first principles) may be a right invested forever in the "citizenry".
That the politics of the free
belong not to the free
and the right of its freedom
is a political exercise
of no one.
But that is not who we are.
The truth for this Nation and its Republic is - if corruption were indeed political (and there is nothing to be done about it), then we are all corrupt. This makes us all responsible for the Phenomenon of Corruption.
Corruption is political. Therefore, what troubles it brings to our politics is our common concern.
Political freedom - is ensured -
by the right to exercise its - expression -
- responsibly, purposefully, and honorably -
in a participatory democracy,
as citizens equally,
and with our representations in government,
knowing well - we are together -
across our generations - to the last -
engaged
in a Republic undertaking.
Political devolution that is the exercise of our national communities as LGUs makes no sense if this power of popular empowerment was intended only for those who use it in a manner that is corrupt - politicians of this stripe neither serve, nor sow, nor build, nor burden themselves with the weak and powerless, but only seek to reap. How do we make sense of our political freedom with theirs?
There are no good or bad politicians, politics was never a vocation - in and of itself - in this Republic, only public service.
And so, who we consider as our politicians are actually our public servants, whether good or bad, especially those who - we affirm - as an Electorate - in their Executive and Legislative seats of service - who are in various ways, skilled in politics.
Whatever platforms and initiatives these elected officials in the Republic State shall represent - receive our mandate in the elections that affirm them - because they represented the matter well - in the public forums of the Republic.
BUT of the good ones, let is also be said - that they have won their mandates - because their agendas are derived from a heart that listens to what is real in the hearts of the people - and so serve to carry them out, their politics is the art of the real - real service, real needs, real people.
So in politics, there are those who are skilled in its exercise - living with and alongside the people - and also those who believe that politics may be exercised without a heart of public service. No one is a politician like these politicians. And no politics is dirty that represent what is sovereign in the Filipino people.
We have truly dedicated public servants serving in our midst everyday, some of them exercise in our behalf, the politics of State - to make real what in the election we have affirmed in them - as a matter of policy.
Corruption is not a political malaise - in them.
Corruption is what grows forth in fields of County where the laborers in the Nation become scarce.
It is not a weakness in our civic spirit, but a failure to appreciate what is true forever in our common citizenship; a failure to recognize the tares from the wheat.
Legislating corruption will seem an impossible task without apprehending how Law may serve to confine its specific manifestations in the life of our national communities.
Where our Justice system and juridical thoughts be led to suspect that corruption is ONLY political, it shall defer the matter exclusively to the Executive and Legislative as a matter of institutional self-maintenance.
But the truth is, corruption affects all Filipinos in a very real way, producing poverty where before there was none and despair where poverty have for so long persisted - poverty that registers as a national security concern.
Why is Justice herself (as she is established in this Nation) not impelled to act?
Perhaps, we need an anti-corruption law. I personally think we do.
However, with our lawmakers and leaders saddled with the enormity of the political scandal wrought by Janet Napoles, it seems there is little time for it.
Public funds forever retain a public nature.
Citizen Napoles should have realized the aforementioned fact and her personal freedoms should have responded accordingly.
Any Court in the Republic may convict her for the misuse of the material representation of the spirit of our coming together as a Republic - that those taxes and all such proceeds that symbolize the parity of our common fortunes as one Country and one Nation - were never hers - nor were they the possession of those who authorized their individual disbursements - for the law recognizes theft as a crime.
But no Court save the Justice of God in both individual and collective Judgment may convict her for the omission with which she first implicated herself and caused her to willfully commit this quite epic public disappointment we now witness unfolding in the life of our Nation - a transgression against her freedoms which are those same freedoms defined by her citizenship - which is that same citizenship that we are all responsible for - upon the Liberty of Country as we know it - because as a citizen, it should have been made well known to her soul that to bear the burden of our Liberty is to share in its light.
These days, pending the conclusion of the Legislative inquiry, she stands a very good chance to lose her freedom. Indeed, the freedoms that bless are not the freedoms that curse.
---<--@
Personal Reflection
I feel, as I know most of us do, the enormity of the loss inflicted by billions of pesos not just in the material but also in the spiritual - for the taxes we all pay - are always - more than just their material worth.
The permissiveness of it all confounds minds and crushes hearts. It sets us back years. And it affects lives in the millions, afflicting the Nation as a whole.
I do not hate Janet Napoles. I hate what she did but would never wish for anyone, the predicament she now finds herself irreversibly embroiled in - so full of betrayals, distrust, and seething malice.
No amount of money in this universe is worth the value of good and simple, happy living. Wealth comes naturally to a free and happy people - AND this is who we are.
AND this is why we are a Republic, to make it so.
My observation as regards the Legislative inquiry is first and foremost, as an aid to the work of sustaining the living law - public funds deserve better protection and this shall require the aid of Law.
To move the Nation forward with the times, we should also seek to better understand and realize - within each ourselves - the citizenship which is our heritage and the freedoms we are responsible for - because of it, that keep us free.
Because in a way, we are each responsible for Citizen Napoles - not for what she did, but for who she failed to become.
in the manner with which we use it
in the National Dialogue
as citizens
is usually implied to be
a political malaise.
Thus,
that same word,
when in the forums of the Republic
the issue of the popular will
as regards corruption
is - in every manner - heard,
bears with it
this weight of civic belief -
that corruption
is "political".
And so -
Our genuine representations in the State
whose particular politics - must - be relied upon
to hammer and craft a policy on this matter (of corruption)
find themselves cast on the same boat
with the disingenuous.
Without the public trust,
the politics of the Republic can not work
in the manner it is supposed to work.
(Because
the public interest
- is -
this public's interest.)
And dirty politics
will indeed
creep into the Republic
to cheapen the regal mantle
of public service -
the public
and the Republic
be damned.
So what is corruption? Certainly our Nation must consider this issue as an event - for the life of our Nation is more permanent than the Phenomenon of Corruption. And this is the truth.
We were not always overly anxious about corruption till it became a life threatening sickness in the Republic.
Poverty and corruption seem to be in a death spiral because the labor of our Nation translate not or is either dissipated or ignored by the unsavory politics that - we, the people - are supposed to own (i.e. exercise a proper civic ownership) in this Nation.
Were we not a participatory democracy, everybody should be free to exculpate political responsibility from the people (and divest popular government of all its virtue).
AND were we not a Republic, that same "freedom" (to willfully deny the character of our citizenship its first principles) may be a right invested forever in the "citizenry".
That the politics of the free
belong not to the free
and the right of its freedom
is a political exercise
of no one.
But that is not who we are.
The truth for this Nation and its Republic is - if corruption were indeed political (and there is nothing to be done about it), then we are all corrupt. This makes us all responsible for the Phenomenon of Corruption.
Corruption is political. Therefore, what troubles it brings to our politics is our common concern.
Political freedom - is ensured -
by the right to exercise its - expression -
- responsibly, purposefully, and honorably -
in a participatory democracy,
as citizens equally,
and with our representations in government,
knowing well - we are together -
across our generations - to the last -
engaged
in a Republic undertaking.
Political devolution that is the exercise of our national communities as LGUs makes no sense if this power of popular empowerment was intended only for those who use it in a manner that is corrupt - politicians of this stripe neither serve, nor sow, nor build, nor burden themselves with the weak and powerless, but only seek to reap. How do we make sense of our political freedom with theirs?
There are no good or bad politicians, politics was never a vocation - in and of itself - in this Republic, only public service.
And so, who we consider as our politicians are actually our public servants, whether good or bad, especially those who - we affirm - as an Electorate - in their Executive and Legislative seats of service - who are in various ways, skilled in politics.
Whatever platforms and initiatives these elected officials in the Republic State shall represent - receive our mandate in the elections that affirm them - because they represented the matter well - in the public forums of the Republic.
BUT of the good ones, let is also be said - that they have won their mandates - because their agendas are derived from a heart that listens to what is real in the hearts of the people - and so serve to carry them out, their politics is the art of the real - real service, real needs, real people.
So in politics, there are those who are skilled in its exercise - living with and alongside the people - and also those who believe that politics may be exercised without a heart of public service. No one is a politician like these politicians. And no politics is dirty that represent what is sovereign in the Filipino people.
We have truly dedicated public servants serving in our midst everyday, some of them exercise in our behalf, the politics of State - to make real what in the election we have affirmed in them - as a matter of policy.
Corruption is not a political malaise - in them.
Corruption is what grows forth in fields of County where the laborers in the Nation become scarce.
It is not a weakness in our civic spirit, but a failure to appreciate what is true forever in our common citizenship; a failure to recognize the tares from the wheat.
Legislating corruption will seem an impossible task without apprehending how Law may serve to confine its specific manifestations in the life of our national communities.
Where our Justice system and juridical thoughts be led to suspect that corruption is ONLY political, it shall defer the matter exclusively to the Executive and Legislative as a matter of institutional self-maintenance.
But the truth is, corruption affects all Filipinos in a very real way, producing poverty where before there was none and despair where poverty have for so long persisted - poverty that registers as a national security concern.
Why is Justice herself (as she is established in this Nation) not impelled to act?
Perhaps, we need an anti-corruption law. I personally think we do.
However, with our lawmakers and leaders saddled with the enormity of the political scandal wrought by Janet Napoles, it seems there is little time for it.
Public funds forever retain a public nature.
Citizen Napoles should have realized the aforementioned fact and her personal freedoms should have responded accordingly.
Any Court in the Republic may convict her for the misuse of the material representation of the spirit of our coming together as a Republic - that those taxes and all such proceeds that symbolize the parity of our common fortunes as one Country and one Nation - were never hers - nor were they the possession of those who authorized their individual disbursements - for the law recognizes theft as a crime.
But no Court save the Justice of God in both individual and collective Judgment may convict her for the omission with which she first implicated herself and caused her to willfully commit this quite epic public disappointment we now witness unfolding in the life of our Nation - a transgression against her freedoms which are those same freedoms defined by her citizenship - which is that same citizenship that we are all responsible for - upon the Liberty of Country as we know it - because as a citizen, it should have been made well known to her soul that to bear the burden of our Liberty is to share in its light.
These days, pending the conclusion of the Legislative inquiry, she stands a very good chance to lose her freedom. Indeed, the freedoms that bless are not the freedoms that curse.
---<--@
Personal Reflection
I feel, as I know most of us do, the enormity of the loss inflicted by billions of pesos not just in the material but also in the spiritual - for the taxes we all pay - are always - more than just their material worth.
The permissiveness of it all confounds minds and crushes hearts. It sets us back years. And it affects lives in the millions, afflicting the Nation as a whole.
I do not hate Janet Napoles. I hate what she did but would never wish for anyone, the predicament she now finds herself irreversibly embroiled in - so full of betrayals, distrust, and seething malice.
No amount of money in this universe is worth the value of good and simple, happy living. Wealth comes naturally to a free and happy people - AND this is who we are.
AND this is why we are a Republic, to make it so.
My observation as regards the Legislative inquiry is first and foremost, as an aid to the work of sustaining the living law - public funds deserve better protection and this shall require the aid of Law.
To move the Nation forward with the times, we should also seek to better understand and realize - within each ourselves - the citizenship which is our heritage and the freedoms we are responsible for - because of it, that keep us free.
Because in a way, we are each responsible for Citizen Napoles - not for what she did, but for who she failed to become.