My kind of Senator

Here is a personal observation. Each time I attend convocations or symposia, or gatherings where the featured speakers are mayors, governors, congressmen, senators or even the highest official of the land, I seem to hear about corruption being the focus of their speeches. Most of these politicians are good at elocution and they usually cite statistics to support their theme. Invariably they, as a kind of coup de grace, compare the high level of corruption of our country with that of, say, Indonesia.

It was not a surprise to me that in the 2010 elections, the campaign slogan of His Excellency President Benigno Simeon Cojuangco Aquino III, then only a candidate, was centered on corruption being our national problem. Oh, he hit the bulls-eye, literally. If elections were won by which slogan approximated the dreams of the voters, the candidate PNoy made mince meat such battle cries as “Erap Para sa Mahirap” and “Sipag at tiyaga”. His “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” raised the hopes of the majority of the electorate.         

Since all along these years, our country has remained poor and many of us are living below the poverty line, does it follow, from the logic of the president, that many of our leaders are corrupt? If kung walang corrupt, there are no mahirap, does it mean that because many of our countrymen are mahirap, the people who control the reins of government are corrupt? Differently said, could we say that with his victory, we acknowledged the presence of corrupt men in government? Would it be logical to conclude that with our electing him the president we, in effect, admitted that many officials did not follow the “righteous path” (my rough translation of the Tagalog line matuwid na daan)?

When the impeachment court, voting with an overwhelming 20 to 3, adjudged the former Chief Justice Renato Corona guilty of betrayal of public trust, it only chorused with the president that even the highest magistrate did not follow the righteous path. The case of the former chief justice could be used as an example of a government official who did not tread the “matuwid na daan.” How else would we construe his conviction?

If that be the case and we are realistic enough to admit the fact of the prevalence of corrupt leaders, then the aspirations of our people for sweeping change is not difficult to decipher. Because it is most difficult to find out who are the honest men and women in high government offices, we can put them all in the same characterization. Let us proceed to assume that they, as a rule, are all corrupt and those who are not of this dubious distinction should try their best to convince us that they are the rara avis, belonging to the exception.

My point in saying that it is “not difficult to decipher” how to achieve a change can be reduced to a simplistic formula. I will experiment by starting with the elected leadership in our country. It is a radical approach and like all novel ideas, it is, I must hasten to admit, fraught with imperfections. Still, I am prepared to be pilloried for making this suggestion.

In the 2013 elections, I will not cast my vote for senators who are re-electionists. They are the men and women referred to in the speeches of the president and other convocation speakers, as keeping our country impoverished. If our country is poor it must be because these senators, according to the logic of the president, do not follow the “matuwid na daan.”  

I do not want to name names as yet because these purported re-electionists have yet to file their certificates of candidacy. As soon as they formalize their intention to seek re-election, I will mark them x and consider them as non-candidates. Those who are anointed by any incumbent senator as successor to his “throne” will carry the same categorization as non-candidates.

To approximate the ideal of a “new beginning” I will adopt the theory espoused by Plato’s Republic. Who among the new names have relevant academic credentials? They must be competent, I assume, to carry the heavy load of legislative work. My bias for the “intellectual” works against the ever popular movie stars and sports heroes who have not achieved the kind of education attuned to this nature of public service.

I will write in a later column the “social orientation” that needs to accompany the mind of my next candidates for senator.