When Resignation Is The Most Honorable Thing To DoBy Atty. Aleck Francis Lim
October 29, 2006 The Bohol Standard
Resignation is the most honorable move a public official can do when his office and his person are mired in public scandal. That’s how officials in other side of the world see things.
A popular opinion that indicates that the people have lost confidence in an elected or appointed official can catapult him to give up his position.
The way a public official in other countries and the politicians in our country react to an issue or allegation draws a gaping distinction between politics here and politics abroad.
The Japanese people put premium value on reputation and personal honor to the extreme. An official or even a private citizen would commit suicide in the face of defeat or public scandal.
In our society, an official would forever cling to his position even if all roads would lead to his conviction. Not in other democratic societies. Their officials would immediately resign even if an allegation cannot yet be proven with compelling evidence.
Take for instance the case in Peru a couple of years ago in which its Prime Minister Alberto Fujimuri tendered resignation in the wake of a corruption scandal involving his former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.
On March 7 last year Bolivia’s president, Carlos Mesa, had to resign from his office when the Bolivians staged protests demanding lower fuel prices and calling for increases in taxes levied on foreign oil companies.
Mesa took office in October 2003, succeeding President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, who was also forced to resign in the wake of street protests.
Early this month in the United States, Republican congressman Mark Foley left his office in the wake of allegations that he sent “inappropriate†emails to his underage interns.
Foley did not wait to be convicted in a court, that is if he would be tried for sending those salacious emails.
This brings us to mind the case of congressman Jalosjos, who did not resign in the wake of a rape charge involving a minor. He fought to the end even if the evidence of his guiltiness was too strong to be dismissed.
Next year we will be holding elections, and the scandal involving dubious purchase of computers and equipment to transform the electoral exercise in this country a bit “hi-tech†remains blurry. We all know that the deal was nothing but a rip-off, but no Comelec official is willing to stand responsible for the issue as if it were ghosts who bought those computers.
It seems that it is next to impossible that a Filipino official would tender resignation in the wake of a public scandal.
While we can cite a lot of examples in other countries in which officials end their public service in shame and resignation, it is not so in this corruption-soaked Philippine soil.
We hear of ghost projects in this province that involved not a single peso but millions of pesos of public funds but no official is courageous and honorable enough (like the Japanese?) to resign and face the music.
We hear of local projects and programs in which the public is being shortchanged, but the culprits remain protected and are living in a fairy tale of so-called public service.
As elections come next year, will there be politicians here and in Manila who are honest enough and brave enough to resign if they are confronted with issues that would test their sincerity and integrity?
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