What has become of that code approved by no less than the Philippine Senate, authored by no less than former Senator Jovito "Jovy" Salonga?
This is the Code of Ethical Standards for government officials and employees. Salonga envisioned this to promote honesty, efficiency, and loyalty among state employees. It also provides for corresponding penalties for offenders.
The Salonga Bill was patterned after a Code of Ethics adopted during the Commonwealth period under President Manuel L. Quezon. During those years, there was strict compliance with the code. The father used to tell me stories that when his father (my grandfather) was issued a government vehicle, nobody in the family could ride that vehicle but grandfather.
But I think my father outdid him when he was a government official too by not accepting a car. Yes, it can be done after all, but times have changed and government-issued vehicles are most of the time used for family-related purposes.
And, the general rule now seems to be that one sure way of getting rich is to join the government and engage yourself in all kinds of transactions.
During the Quezon years, joining the government meant financial sacrifice.
This is what Salonga wanted to inculcate in his code. And one of the most important provisions of the code requires simple living for all those in government service. It simply but directly mandates all those in government to “lead modest lives appropriate to their position and income.”
On the widespread practice of bribery, the code specifically prohibits state officials and employees to “solicit or accept directly or indirectly any gift, favor, loan or anything of monetary value from any person in the course of their official duties or in connection with any operation or transaction related to their office.”
Those in government should pay heed. I have always been an ardent admirer of Jovy Salonga, plus the fact that he and I share the same faith. I too have listened intently to his words of human dignity and liberties in the Senate halls and from the pulpit of the Cosmopolitan Church in Manila. He has long been gone, but may he continue to rest in paradise with the giver of wisdom and eternal life.
The stupid Urban Development Housing Act of 1992
Squatters are perpetually in the minds of individuals running for public office. But after winning, they are soon forgotten once more.
But then, how can we really forget them when everywhere we go, we see them? Even Malacañang once housed the biggest squatter family right after the Marcoses fled in 1986.
So there was a time a few years back when proponents to decriminalize squatting came under fire. Especially targeted was former Senator Joey Lina, known for his ‘stupid Lina Law,’ also known as the Urban Development act of 1992, another blunder of the Cory Aquino regime.
The law simply exempts squatters from criminal prosecution. Well, it also encourages squatting. Property owners say that the Lina Law, supported by the Aquino administration, further aggravated the squatting problem, and yes, encouraged invasion and occupation of government and private land by the hordes of squatters coming from the provinces.
Former Senator Ambrosio Padilla, one of the leaders of the property owners, stressed that squatting had become a widespread vice since the last global war.
Citing court decisions, Padilla said, “Squatting was and is a blight. Squatters’ areas pose problems of health and sanitation. They are breeding places for crime. They constitute proof that respect for the law and rights of others, even those of the government, are being flouted.
Knowingly, squatters have embarked on the pernicious act of occupying property whenever and wherever convenient to their interests. They are emboldened seemingly because of their belief that they could violate the law with impunity.”
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama
The invasion of tiny Panama by the world’s mightiest nation, the United States of America, was seen by many in the Philippines as a brutal use of raw power to cow a helpless country into submission.
Many saw striking similarities in that US intervention in Panama and the US role in the rise and fall of then President Ferdinand E. Marcos and the ascendancy of then President Corazon Aquino who, at one point in her life, was saved from certain doom only because of US intervention.
Remember those phantom jets? Echoing resentments among Latin American nations and other third world countries, many Filipino nationalists dared the US to pick somebody its own size like Russia or China.
Since it suffered a military defeat in Vietnam, the US has selected its opponents carefully, making sure the odds would be on their side in any military or diplomatic confrontation.
And its first post-Vietnam military engagement was with puny Grenada which doesn’t even have an army. Panama became a state at the turn of the century when, with US diplomatic and military support, seceded from Colombia.
The new state allowed the US to build the Panama Canal on terms more generous than what Colombia was willing to offer.
The Panamanian government has had a history of manipulation by the US, which had vested interests in the US Canal Zone. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Then US President George Bush Sr. justified his sending US jets to bomb Panamanian military and civilian targets exactly by saying this was necessary to save democracy – as he did when he authorized US military support to keep the former Cory Aquino regime from toppling down.
The US intervention in Panama was condemned worldwide, except in countries under the control and influence of the US.
Methinks they should have sent Bush back to the bushes, among other barbarians. US intervention in that country’s affairs were jestingly justified by then US Senator Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa who declared, “Panama is ours. We stole it fair and square!”
READ MORE:
Big fish and the Presidential Commission on Galunggong (April 26, 2024)
The 'missing' jewels (April 23, 2024)
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