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.

Plunderers’ row

 

 

Anyone with an Internet connection can check the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) website to find out if his or her favourite or most detested public official, whether a police chief or mayor, governor or cabinet member, has faced charges of graft and corruption. The PCIJ website has accumulated a database of Sandiganbayan cases against Philippine public officials from 1979 to 2012.

 

It’s no surprise if you find in the PCIJ database the three highest ranking government officials ever charged with plunder: former presidents Ferdinand Marcos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo-Macapagal.  

Protests against corruption in government heat up as Napoles, 37 others face
plunder, graft raps. Click link to view press conference of the Dept. of Justice,
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/488567/napoles-3-senators-face-plunder-raps-over-pork-barrel-scam

Ferdinand Marcos had been implicated in several cases involving bribery and other forms of corruption in government for all the years he had ruled the country with an iron fist. Whether by a stroke of luck or aggressive lawyering by his defence team, the Sandiganbayan simply failed to find any liability against Marcos.

 

Take the case of Herminio Disini, a Marcos crony who was found by the Sandiganbayan in 2012 guilty for receiving bribes in connection with the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP). Disini was ordered to return to the government $50.6 million in commissions he received for helping two foreign firms win the BNPP contract. While the Sandiganbayan found Marcos to have had a “personal financial interest” in the transaction, the court could not find evidence to show that either Marcos or his wife, Imelda, received any part of the commissions from the BNPP deal.

 

Disini is still a free man and rumoured to be living somewhere in Europe in a castle he bought for himself. Marcos died a long time ago but his family is back in political power. Although there is no statute of limitation in recovering the Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth, the government has simply not done anything as if this has been a forgotten issue.

 

Everyone knows what happened to Joseph Estrada. Two years into his presidency, he was charged with plunder and convicted by the Sandiganbayan. Estrada was sentenced to life imprisonment or reclusion perpetua until he was pardoned by his successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Arroyo, who herself would be charged with plunder after her presidency and more than two years into her supposed trial by the Sandiganbayan, remains in hospital custody while eagerly waiting for her day in court. Estrada has been elected mayor of Manila while Arroyo has been re-elected as her district’s representative in Congress.

 

The Sandiganbayan as an anti-graft court was established during the term of the dictator Marcos, apparently not a serious feature of his repressive government, or to be expected to become an effective arm of the government in combating corruption of public service employees. According to Senator Frank Drilon, the current Senate President, there are at least 2,600 graft cases still pending before Sandiganbayan, which is only able to resolve less than 100 cases yearly.

 

Overwhelmed with an enormous number of unresolved cases, how then can we expect the Sandiganbayan to speed up the much-awaited trial of the senators and members of Congress who were named in the complaint filed by the Department of Justice in the recent pork barrel scam? Judging by the Sandiganbayan’s appalling inefficiency, there is virtually no hope for the public for a swift and early dispensation of justice for the nation’s collective indignation. What a waste for the people’s hue and cry?

 

The unpleasant track record of the Sandiganbayan merely confirms that morality is rigged in favour of the powerful. The mighty that have stood up in trial for their high misdemeanours against the nation are either pardoned or simply locked up for the moment until everyone has learned to forget, even perhaps, to forgive. Or better yet, waiting for the right moment for all their charges to be swept under the rug.

 

Public consciousness has been aroused about the evils of corruption in government. The people are now getting more and more exposed to the various camouflages that conceal corruption that goes unrecognized. But it is the government and the powers it yields that now prove weak in wrestling with this conundrum. Or maybe, the government and our current crop of leaders are not serious enough, like their predecessors, in combing out corruption because if they were, they would similarly be the object of public lynching. Not by the organized opposition but because their own hands are also dirty and the public knows it.

 

This is clearly evident in the current complaint filed by the Department of Justice against 38 defendants—three senators, some members of Congress, and others allegedly involved in scamming the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). All lawmakers named in the complaint are known stalwarts of Noynoy Aquino’s opposition, which could rightfully infer bias and political motivation to stymie the potential rivals of the current government’s anointed successors.

 

The information contained in the complaint is very shoddy and alludes to pieces of evidence yet to be gathered. It smacks of a fishing expedition, a careless preparation just to allay a restive public that is bent on holding more and bigger protests against the government’s feeble response to the nation’s outcry.

 

According to the special report of the Commission on Audit (COA) for the years 2007 to 2009, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been violating the use of funds under PDAF without an appropriation law or ordinance earmarking such amounts for their projects. NGOs were simply endorsed by legislators, thus funds were allowed to be transferred to NGOs whose status and existence turned out to be questionable, such as those run or incorporated by Janet Napoles, the alleged pork barrel queen.

 

It is also doubtful that the named defendants in the complaint were the only ones involved in the PDAF fiasco. The current president who was a congressman for nine years and a senator for three years before being elected president would certainly have received his share of PDAF allocations, whether through his own network of supporters or NGOs. Besides, as president, Noynoy Aquino has the discretionary spending power without audit and oversight which could tap into almost P1.5 trillion of revenues from the Malampaya fund and PAGCOR operations through regulation of amusements and gaming facilities. PDAF makes up only about 1.3 percent of the yearly national budget. It means that there are other potential sources for massive corruption that remain untouched if we simply focus on the PDAF scam.

 

But then, all the president’s loyal men claim Noynoy Aquino is incorruptible, honest and super clean—therefore, he should be spared of the people’s collective indignation against corruption in government. Of course.

 

In the same COA report, it also identified 54 PDAF-funded projects which were constructed on private properties belonging to members of Congress not named in the complaint. Obviously, these members of Congress are affiliated with the president’s party or known to be supportive of the current administration. Such use of funds, as pointed out by COA, is prohibited. According to law, public funds must be used to promote public welfare or purposes, and not individual advantage.

 

In the grand scheme of public corruption, we might as well declare all members of Congress in both houses, and the office of the president, or even the entire bureaucracy, as a big plunderers’ row. But as official morality seems to reside in the hands of the powerful, the sitting president and his party and supporters control the government. They have at their disposal all agencies and offices, including the media, to prosecute and persecute those they have deemed as enemies of the state.

 

Janet Napoles and the PDAF scam have become our national morality play. From the perspective of institutionalized corruption, this entire mess, according to the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG), “dramatizes only one aspect of a long entrenched tradition of lack of accountability by politicians and a culture of impunity enjoyed by the powerful.”