Multiple betrayals of public trust

When you are elected to public office, whether as president of the whole republic or president of the SK, for instance, in the remotest island barangay in Sering, Socorro, Surigao del Sur, a public trust is entrusted to you. When you turn out to violate your oath of office, then you are guilty of breach of public trust. If you are honorable, you should remove yourself by resigning. If you are callous, then the law or the people shall forcibly oust you, and in some cases, perpetually bar you from any public office forever,

The presidential oath reads: "I solemnly swear that I will faithfully and conscientiously fulfill my duties as president, preserve and defend the Constitution, execute its laws, do justice to every man, and consecrate myself to the service of the Nation, so help me God." Under Executive Order number 292, all public officers and employees, including all members of the armed forces, before entering office, and before discharging any public functions, shall take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, to bear true faith and allegiance to it, to obey the laws, legal orders, and degrees promulgated by the duly constituted authorities, to faithfully discharge to the best of their abilities to the duties of the office, and to voluntarily assume all such obligations without mental reservation nor purpose of evasion.

Since you are entering government service, you should always remember that the Philippine Constitution mandates that the prime duty of the government is to serve and protect the people, and that the peoples' ultimate dream and aspiration is to build a just and humane society. You are sworn to be a part of a government that shall embody the ideals of the people, to promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and to secure to ourselves and to our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy. Never forget that it is your duty to promote the rule of law, preserve the regime of justice and freedom. All your decisions and actions should be aligned with the ideals of love, equality and peace. Anything that deviates from any and all these shall be deemed the betrayal of public trust.

You betray public trust if you leave the people alone in the face of a series of rising prices of rice, gas, and other commodities. If you neglect the farmers and the fisherfolks and proceed to import rice while the farmers' produce are left to the cruel manipulations of traders, hoarders, and smugglers. You betray public trust when you allow the constitutionally-guaranteed living wage to be reduced to minimum wages at starvation levels while the business taipans are raking in windfall profits and revenues. You betray public trust when you allow the middle-class wage and salary earners to be overtaxed while the strong and favored elite business tycoons are allowed to avoid and even evade taxes. You betray public trust when small guys are peremptorily sent to prisons while congressmen can just evade the rule of law and your people cannot do anything about that.

You betray public trust when young and innocent boys are just recklessly killed by the policemen on the simple excuse of mistaken identity, when public school teachers can slap and kill students just like that. There is betrayal when thousands of young boys and girls are being forced to drop out of school and compelled to do hard labor and compulsory teenage marriages, and the government just allows all these to happen in broad daylight, without doing anything to stop all these shenanigans and arrest the offenders. There is betrayal of public trust when immigration and airport security personnel can just steal from tourists and passengers by swallowing dollars in the full view of CCTV cameras.

Above all, there is grand betrayal of public trust when one single public official would demand for more than half a billion in confidential and intelligence funds when the nation is in debt to the tune of more than ?14.3 trillion. And when the people raise a howl, they are immediately red-tagged as enemies of the state.

Every day, each moment, there is betrayal of public trust when public officials choose to forget that their prime duty is to serve and protect the citizens, not to deceive, threaten, much less harm the people.

nd that is to be humble. It’s this virtue that would open us to the grace of God that in the end is the only way we can achieve this unity of life. Let’s forget and dismiss the idea that we can achieve this unity of life by our own efforts and powers alone.

This crucial virtue of humility can be developed in two ways; when we humble our own selves and when we are humbled by others or by some unavoidable circumstances. In that gospel cited above, Christ told the people that they have to humble themselves in the sense that they should avoid places of honor and privilege when invited to banquets, for example.

We have to realize then that any privilege, honor or praise given to us is a call for us to be more generous in our self-giving to such an extent that we would not run away from making the supreme sacrifice of giving our life for God and the others, just like what Christ did.

Our attitude should be to sharpen even more our desire to serve and not to be served. Christ made it clear to the mother and the brother-apostles, James and John, when he said, “The Son of man has not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20,28)

Reiterating the same idea, he told them, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. Not so is it among you. On the contrary, whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave.”

No doubt, with humility we can make progress in our quest for unity of life!