Publicly misbehaving

 

 

Toronto’s chattering classes are up in arms against Mayor Rob Ford’s public display of his personal shortcomings. These are glaring faults in the mayor’s behaviour in public that are perceived below the standard of moral conduct expected of public leaders. Inasmuch as the mayor has not been charged of any criminal behaviour, the city council’s hands are tied for lack of authority to suspend or even impeach the mayor from his duties as the top honcho of North America’s fourth largest city.

 

When the mayor is caught in a state of drunken stupor in a video released in major newspapers, broadcast in mainstream TV shows in Canada and the United States, or online in social media, there is a strong argument that while the mayor has the right to drink or to be drunk, doing so in public’s plain view diminishes the mayor’s position and runs afoul with the ordinary person’s idea of an elected public servant. Being photographed or videotaped in the company of shadowy characters also makes the mayor’s case even more damning to the public eye.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford listens during a city council meeting which strips his
powers as mayor of North America's fourth largest city. AFP Photo/Geoff Robins.
Click link to view "Rob Ford promises 'outright war' as powers further restricted,"
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/rob-ford-could-see-council-restrict-office-budget-090124912.html

Or when the mayor admits to smoking crack cocaine and blaming it on being inebriated and later proclaiming to everyone with all contrition that he feels sorry about it—such indiscretions on the part of the city’s top executive do not comport well with public expectations.

 

Worse, when the mayor uses foul and offensive language on television that demeans women, he has inexcusably crossed the line that separates decency from inappropriate behaviour, a conduct unbecoming of a public figure such as the city’s mayor.

 

Probably in other jurisdictions, such displays of tasteless and unacceptable behaviour in public are enough to bear considerable weight on a politician’s mind to think of resigning. The political careers of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer and Congressman Anthony Weiner had been cut short by their sexual improprieties that had nothing to do with their ability to perform in their elected positions. It is almost a public expectation that when a public official is caught red-handed like Mayor Ford, the only and perhaps most responsible thing to do is quit. But not the Toronto mayor who believes he has the impunity to misbehave in public, and that his diehard constituents would not mind as long as he delivers on his election promises.

 

Should there be a link between immorality and qualification for high office, or is this something like passé or downright impossible in light of today’s modern values?

 

The expectation that an elected public official must resign in view of his inappropriate conduct and abuse of public expectations still makes a lot of sense. A society with high moral standards is one that knows the difference between right and wrong. It’s true that what politicians do in their bedrooms or on their private time is their own business. But when their behaviour crosses the boundaries of decency and respectability, it also tarnishes their office and their image to the public that have put them in office.

 

Mayor Rob Ford’s personal shortcomings denote not only a breakdown in his private compass, but have also ramifications to public morality in general. To borrow from and paraphrase Robert Reich, there seems to be a moral rot in Toronto but it is not to be found in the private behaviours of its citizens. It is located in the public behaviour of elected people like Mayor Ford and his brother Councillor Doug Ford who control the city council and are turning the city of Toronto into the laughing stock of the world. Such displays of public misbehaviour on the part of the city mayor cannot be allowed: it downgrades public morality and puts its elected officials whom it has entrusted to govern to shame and ridicule by foreign media and the world at large.

 

The citizens of Toronto expect more from those they assign with public trust. We cannot give Mayor Rob Ford a free pass for his public misconduct. To give the city mayor the impunity to do what he wishes is synonymous with allowing him to run roughshod against values that people expect in a civil society. This is the greater danger that the mayor’s shortcomings may have on our society.

 

If Mayor Rob Ford should resign now and seek counsel to mend his ways, he still has the opportunity to seek office again. A re-election would naturally mean his redemption. But of course the people of Toronto, not wanting a return to the current state of affairs, should soundly and vigorously trash him when that opportunity comes. The mayor’s personal deficiencies have become a matter of public record. To rebuke his re-election if he ever decides to run again does not mean punishing him; rather, it is a declaration that the public will not entertain anymore shenanigans from leaders they elect to office.

 

The idea that there is no connection between loose morals and public integrity is a theory that politicians like Rob Ford and others like him adhere to. While integrity is something like a fungible commodity for most politicians, public outrage against elected politicians like Rob Ford is a clear and strong reminder to our leaders that they don’t have the impunity to misbehave, and that their personal egos have no place in public service.

 

What could be true in Toronto could also be true to the federal government as well. Before the controversy that Mayor Rob Ford helped stir in the public eye, three Conservative Party senators were suspended from the Canadian Senate for claiming travel and housing expenses for which they were not eligible. In the wake of the Senate scandal, more and more Canadians are now clamouring to reform the Senate by abolishing it or getting the senators chosen through an election rather than the current practice of appointing them. Reform or abolition of the Senate would require a constitutional amendment and the support of at least seven of ten provinces.

 

With the suspensions of Senators Mike Duffy, Pam Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is hoping that the scandal is now over. But the controversy hasn’t ended, and the scandal continues to persist, because at the heart of this affair is the Prime Minister himself. When the controversy about the senators’ allowances exploded, Harper’s aides and some senior members of his Conservative Party tried to cover up the scandal. Harper denied he knew anything about it.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada takes questions in the House of Commons
over dispute regarding Canadian senators' expenses as it balloons into a larger political
scandal for the Conservative Party government.

It was Harper who appointed these senators and, in turn, he benefited from their presence in the Senate. Brazeau, who was then an influential leader in the off-reserve Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, was one of the few native leaders who sided with Harper’s decision to mothball the so-called Kelowna Accord. Both Duffy and Wallin were high-profile TV journalists who were appointed to the Senate by Harper to promote the Conservative Party cause.

 

Since members of the Senate are personally appointed by the incumbent Prime Minister for their particular skills or benefits to the party, Filipinos in Toronto should perhaps begin to wonder why one of their so-called leaders was plucked and selected by the Conservative Party to sit in the Senate. What exactly will he bring to the Conservative Party and its agenda in government? Is it just a coincidence that the processing for permanent residence of many live-in caregivers, mostly from the Philippines, has hit a snail’s pace? Why has the Filipino community become peculiarly silent regarding immigration issues such as family reunification, hiring of temporary workers, and reforms in the live-in caregiver program? These are some relevant questions which the Filipino community press should investigate and give deeper coverage to rather than one newspaper’s obsession about bringing down or shaming personalities in the community.

 

Like the country or city we inhabit, the Filipino community in Toronto is also faced with problems caused by some form of social pathology. After all these years, we are still a fractured community. We are only mobilized to unite based on causes or issues close to each of our particular sector’s interest. There are broken windows in our community, for sure; however, the prevailing proclivity for some of us, especially those in the leadership and control of local media, is to throw more stones at more windows, which ultimately will undermine the integrity of our entire community.

 

Windows in our community have started breaking a few years ago. Scandals have plagued some of our organizations, putting the uprightness of some of our community leaders in question. One local newspaper continues in its pre-ordained mission to bash other journalists in the community and some leaders on questionable transactions. The telling of unfounded allegations or half-truths in published statements tarnishes not only certain individuals, but also our community as a whole. Until our so-called leaders and their critics deal with these allegations in an open and constructive way, however, they will continue to fester, and our integrity as a community is in great danger of disintegrating.

 

It’s high time for us, as citizens of Toronto and Canada, and as members of our Filipino community, to stake out the moral high ground. The public misbehaviour of some of our leaders we have elected or selected is not a matter of private morality. They are, like the city mayor’s list of infractions, violations of public morality and common sense. They undermine the integrity of our community, and the city and country we have chosen to live in.

We love our country, too, stupid

Last Friday’s (May 11) “global protest” by Filipinos at home and expat Pinoys abroad against China’s bullying tactics in the South China Sea turned out to be more “local” than widespread judging by the measly number of people who attended. Even the “hakot” crowd of President Noynoy Aquino’s Akbayan Party-list supporters could only muster close to 300 souls in what was expected to be a big protest before the Chinese consulate in Makati City in Manila.

Abroad, the one-hour noon protest in the U.S. and Canada was so disappointing that the organizers were quick to blame those who did not participate for their lack of patriotism, prompting an organizer from Toronto to say that he’ll “puke” the next time he sees members of so-called nationalist groups in Toronto like the Knights of Rizal and the Rizal Society of Ontario show their allegiance to the Philippine flag during the annual Independence Day ceremonies.

Filipino-American protesters denounce China's bullying of the Philippines during
 their lunch-break  picket  at the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C.  Photo by
 Eric Lachica of the  USP4GG. Click link to view "Protest by the Underdog: Low
Turnout in Toronto at  Rally Against China,"
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFlc3USr-E0&feature=channel&list=UL

The protests in the U.S. and Canada were organized by the U.S. Pinoys for Good Governance (USP4GG), a group closely identified with President Noynoy Aquino and known to be supporters of U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton. One of the leaders of the USP4GG, Fil-Am lawyer Loida Nicolas is an older sister of Imelda Nicolas, chairperson with the rank of a cabinet secretary of the Commission for Filipino Overseas, an agency of the Philippine government responsible for promoting the interests of expatriate Filipinos abroad and strengthening their ties with Filipino communities overseas. The Department of Foreign Affairs clarified however that the protests were a purely private undertaking and not sanctioned by the Philippine government.

There were reports of heated exchanges among the Filipino-Americans who attended the protests in the U.S., decrying the low turnout and blaming their fellow Filipino countrymen for being cowards in willing to give up their territories without a fight. Similarly, in Toronto, the few people who showed up were disgusted and questioned why the protest was so poorly organized. The protest organizers, however, put the blame on the failure of the community to meet the test of nationalism when it really counted.

The Toronto spectacle was a dud for obvious reasons.

First, the Scarborough Shoal issue or the bigger dispute in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China to begin with was a non-starter and the attempt to draw the attention of the international community to alleged Chinese aggression and “creeping invasion” was misguided. At the heart of the ongoing row between the two countries is ownership of the disputed rocks or islands. In other words, the question is who has sovereign title and this issue is unresolved, yet the Philippines claims that China has invaded its territories.

The Philippines has asked the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) to intervene as an arbiter but China already made it known to the Philippines that it will not agree to U.N. arbitration on the ground that the Philippines’ claim has no legal basis. Parties to an international dispute have the right to decline arbitration. So, why take the issue to the streets when it’s not going to matter anyway? There are other alternative ways to resolve the impasse like multilateral talks involving the two countries together with the other ASEAN nations who also have competing interests in the South China Sea. It’s just a matter of persuading China to take this route instead of bilateral negotiations, or one-on-one country talks. There are precedents to this type of multilateral negotiations between countries caught between conflicting territorial sovereignty claims.

Second, the organizers of the protest do not have a clear understanding of the legal issues regarding the dispute. Perhaps, they have grasped the issue of territorial sovereignty but only have a faint appreciation of the basis of the Philippines’ claim. To most of them, including the few who were convinced to attend the protest, it was enough that the Philippines is geographically closer to the Scarborough Shoal, about 124 nautical miles from the island of Luzon, compared to the distance of the disputed area to the nearest Chinese mainland coast which is about 472 nautical miles. Nobody tells them, and even if someone did, they would not probably accept that proximity bears no weight on sovereignty ownership because sovereignty over islands is established by legal relations rather than physical proximity.

A Toronto protester interviewed and caught on video stated that the intrusion of the Chinese military into the Scarborough Shoal was completely illegal and that was the reason why they were demonstrating. Sounding like he truly understood the legal issues involved, he argued that the shoal and all the islands in the South China Sea belong to the Philippines as they were delineated in the Treaty of Paris, the basis for the sale of the Philippines by Spain to the United States in 1898.

The reference to the Treaty of Paris was unfortunate and misleading. The maps provided by the Philippines to support its claim did not include the Scarborough Shoal, or Huangyan Island to the Chinese, as part of the territory and sovereignty of the Philippines as defined under the Treaty of Paris. This argument was used before by the United States against the Netherlands in the Island of Palmas Case to reinforce its claim that the island was ceded by Spain to the U.S. under the Treaty of Paris, and even submitted that the island was more contiguous to the Philippines. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1928 decided in favour of the Netherlands ruling that in order to establish sovereignty, discovery must be followed by a continuous and peaceful display of authority or some degree of effective occupation.

The point being made here is without a clear and thoughtful understanding of the legal issues involved, the protest organizers would find it very difficult to persuade others to join. Legal issues should not be left to charlatans to explain.

A Hong Kong protester who supports Chinese sovereignty over the Scarborough
Shoal burns Philippine and US flags. Photo courtesy of AFP/Antony Dickson

Third, the protest organizers were hoping there would be a spontaneous reaction to the issues in the South China Sea by simply putting a website or actually a blogspot similar to this where people can follow the dispute on the Internet. This is insufficient. People must be organized and mobilized, and the issues discussed, so people would be committed to the cause. The protest organizers are hoping against hope that many will join the demonstration after visiting their website and would instantly be aroused by their love of country, that they would not allow its territories be invaded and taken away from them without a fight.

Thus, when people did not show up in great numbers, it was ridiculous and rather insensitive of the protest organizers to call them cowards and to mock their patriotism. As if the only people who were patriotic that day were those who attended. The protest was held for one hour during the noon break. Did the organizers expect people would be driving by to honk or get out of their cars to join those already marching on the street? What if they couldn’t leave work or they were too far away? So, these people were unpatriotic and did not love their country as much as those who attended the protest? What if they did not believe or agree with the protest? Were they not entitled to their opinion, too? Unpatriotic individuals have no right to disagree now?

Lastly, the protest was being used not for the purpose of informing the community of nations about China’s bullying tactics, but apparently for a different ulterior motive. It is becoming clearer now that the United States’ government would like to restructure its military strength in Asia and the Pacific, so the USP4GG protests are being used to drum up the necessity for the U.S. to reinstate its presence in the region by drawing attention to China’s aggression. The Philippine government under Noynoy Aquino is by all means complicit in this scheme, since its cooperation is tied up to foreign assistance from the U.S. It is also not too remote to speculate that the Aquino government could have promised some of the leaders of the USP4GG with one or two senatorial spots in the administration’s ticket in the 2013 elections.

One clear lesson from the uneventful protest last Friday is this: the patriotism of expat Filipinos abroad or even at home cannot be measured simply by their attendance or absence in political demonstrations. Love of country is more than an on-the-spot outburst of bravado or a token one-hour act of patriotism, it is instilled and nurtured through a deeper understanding of the real causes people are committed to support and to die for.

Lessons unlearned

Spring in North America officially started last Monday, March 21st. While its exact timing varies in other countries depending on the local climate and the culture and customs of the people, spring represents an opportunity for renewal. A new day to begin after being savaged by the frigid and dark days of winter.

If only our lives were as simple as the changes that the seasons bring upon us, we would always have springtime to reverse our mistakes and start again. The only problem with this kind of thinking is its repetitive pattern, thus it fools us into complacency, that recovery is always coming after every decline which spring brings about. It implies a cycle of fate drawn on a deterministic path, simple and uncomplicated.

But human lives cannot simply be guided by the vagaries of fate. In fact, we can master our fate and it is up to us to determine the future we like, but not over short periods of months or cyclical changes of the season. That would be too complicated and cumbersome. Changing our fate every time the season changes is like watching a theatre replace its marquee every time there is a new feature presentation.

Yet to our Filipino kababayans overseas, spring always comes as a perpetual rebirth or chance to form another group, for instance, a new and runaway organization with a new set of so-called leaders disgruntled with the other leaders who were formally chosen. At least, this is true of Filipinos in Toronto.

Two Filipino organizations come to mind. One, a major player in the community which sponsors the annual Toronto Mabuhay festival, and the other, a smaller organization of Filipino seniors.

Since 1991, the Mabuhay Festival & Trade Show in Toronto has been the main summer activity of its organizer, the Philippine Independence Day Council (PIDC). PIDC dubbed it as the largest celebration of Philippine heritage, arts and culture in Canada. But not for long. A new organization called the Philippine Canadian Charitable Foundation (PCCF), together with Toronto’s Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI), will launch the newest show in town this coming July and they are calling it, the “Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show sa Toronto.”

There is nothing much different between these two festivals, even their leaders used to work together under the PIDC. Behind the PCCF are former PIDC mainstays. It seems like PIDC’s aim of fostering unity among Filipino-Canadians by showcasing the best of Philippine arts, culture, heritage and charity has backfired.

But who needs two or three Filipino festivals in Toronto during the summer? These festivals offer a similar menu every year: dancing, singing, beauty pageants, trade displays and food booths. And they even have the audacity to brand these shows as the best of our culture, Philippine art and heritage.

Isn’t it time to gather all the supposed brains behind these summer festivities and squeeze them into a jar and put a tight lid around it so all these “moro-moro” festivals will come to an end? First, do we really need these pretentious festivals which have failed miserably as an instrument for unity? Second, do they really represent the best of our culture or do they reduce us into an embarrassing slapstick and farcical spectacles of ourselves? And last, who benefits from these shows but their organizers who hanker after publicity and self-promotion?

Now, how about our seniors? Even our elders seem amused at our custom of breaking up organizations. This Filipino attitude of not accepting failure or defeat reminds us of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophical concept of amour-propre. According to this concept, amour-propre renders a human being incapable of being happy within society. Or as we have probably inherited it from the Spanish, amor propio, or self-love. We do not want to suffer the shame of losing face, for instance, because of self-pride.

The Pillars Cultural Association, an organization of Filipino-Canadian seniors, has been contested by two groups claiming use of the name of the association and the right to its bank accounts and assets. Merely looking at the list of their respective members or even their faces if you happen to meet them around, you would not be able to tell who are the original members from the breakaway group. One local Filipino community newspaper wrote that the rivalry between the two groups reflected a lack of understanding of the principles of democracy, meaning that the breakaway group did not want to accept the voice of the majority and their defeat. But this is more than about a lesson on how democracy works. In fact, it could be an abuse of democracy, the unbridled autonomy to determine one’s own fate.

Conciliation or mediation between the two groups was not even an option, which the community newspaper bewailed after the fact. Why mediation as an option became apparent only after the court has intervened and decided on the issue is also bewildering. The newspaper should have written about this dispute earlier and suggested that the parties settle among themselves instead of choosing expensive litigation. Its voice could be persuasive but it chose to be silent not until the court has made its decision. Personally, I have spoken to one of the association’s elderly members to encourage those who put their names as plaintiffs in the civil suit to settle and remove themselves. The civil suit was a nuisance to start with, and whoever was the lawyer who took the case of the plaintiffs, the ones who did not want to accept defeat, should also be reproached by the community. No self-respecting Filipino lawyer (or of whatever nationality) would drag his clients to an expensive and embarrassing litigation knowing full well that his clients do not have the financial wherewithal to pursue protracted litigation since most of them depend on their pension money. Why, indeed, for a pointless legal cause?

As a people, we never seem capable of learning lessons from our faults. Perhaps our fragile self-pride prevents us from doing so. This kind of disenchantment that leads us to break away and put up our own rival group mirrors the kind of politics we have in our native country.

The Spaniards were able to rule the Philippines for four centuries by dividing our people into separate fiefdoms.

We have carried this provincial and narrow viewpoint into our national ethos. We would rather branch out into fractious political groups rather than consolidate into stronger and more potent factions, whether in opposition or in power. And we have brought this constricted mindset with us everywhere, and to our detriment as a community.

It is a problem that we carry with us. To go beyond false self-pride and look at what we can do with others, outside of our immediate family and friends.

Perhaps we need to remind ourselves always as a people and a struggling community in a foreign land that in the midst of our jeremiad against our leaders—or movers and shakers as some would call them—lessons from our imperfections are better learned by looking deep within ourselves and how we’ve never gone beyond our past.