A kind of late warning
Now that the period for the filing of certificates of candidacy is over, the resulting number of aspirants for political posts baffles me. Their surge is most impressive. The manner by which they announced their intentions to run for public office, some of which were comic, seemed to project that entering government service thru election is without pitfalls.
Without being pessimistic, I dare to bring to the attention of these candidates one little observation. There is an exceedingly high risk in running government offices. And the risk is even rising exponentially. Excluding those who are seeking re-election, these persons who are, at present, candidates, can become elected officials in May 2016 and when that event takes place, the risk is also theirs.
Let me inform these aspirants that while the spiraling records at the Office of the Ombudsman attest to this fact, the observable rise in the number of such cases is so significant that it so alarms me that I feel the need to find out what causes them so as to warn public officials. There are, on one hand, government leaders who are motivated to bring, as quickly as possible, to their constituencies, these things called basic services. In the pursuit of such goal, they miss some tiny step in the known government process and for such faux pas, they are hailed to court.
On the other hand, I also know of ordinary citizens who, after observing the commission of little administrative misdeeds by elected leaders, would have preferred to lie low. They would not want to rock the boat, so to speak. It is certainly not the lack of courage that constrains them to clamp up in the face of apparent misdeed or misfeasance, or even abuse, committed by a government officer. They would rather wait for the next election in order to change the leaders using the political power represented by our votes.
Times have changed. Many of our citizens are literally quick to the draw. Every time they see an admitted misdemeanor on the part of an elected official, they do not anymore consider good faith. In fact, they always see abuse of power. For them, the only way to rectify the error is thru processes that tend to focus on the wrong instead of the benefits generated by the contested act.
If the Ombudsman has enough time to quantify the number of complaints lodged in the last ten years, and in reporting its findings to us, remove the proverbial chaff from the grain, we shall be startled to find out the bigger part of this staggering increase in the volume of such cases is filed by men opposed to the leaders in power. However couched, these cases would lead us to the conclusion that our countrymen have suddenly become trigger happy.
As we compare the present times and the past, we have to acknowledge that there is a good component to this sudden preference to ask the Ombudsman to investigate this or that case. Indeed, in the past, there were but few cases that were lodged against elected government leaders then. That is drastically changed now. It seems that judging from the nature of cases filed with that office, people have begun to trust on this graft office and that is good for our republic.
But, honestly speaking, that is only one side of the coin. I am referring this side to the many probably actionable causes that are brought to the attention of the Ombdusman. These cases stem from legitimate complaints from ordinary citizens who feel that certain deeds of some officials have impaired public service and it is their solemn obligation to right whatever wrong they perceive to have been committed.
In other words, elected officials, in our present times, no matter how sincerely dedicated or honest in their ways, are more prone to becoming defendants and/or accused for acts related to the discharge of their government functions. Many of these seeking elective positions may not be aware of this circumstance and so this warning may have come rather late, but, in the next few months leading to the May election, they can evaluate their positions.
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