Public trust?
Media
Part of Panorama
- Title
- Public trust?
- Creator
- Drilon, Rex D.
- Language
- English
- Source
- Panorama Volume XVII (No. 5) May 1966
- Year
- 1966
- Rights
-
- Abstract
- These are ideas of a careful and courageous Filipino thinker who writes a daily column in a well-edited newspaper
- Fulltext
- ■ These are ideas of a careful and courageous Fili pino thinker who writes a daily column in a welledited newspaper. PUBLIC A prominent person wrote the other day that in order for this country to get mov ing the people should repose trust in our public officials, or something to that effect. Aside from the patent fact that the idea is very old and stupefyingly unimaginative — because everybody is saying it and its wisdom as a prin ciple has long been complete ly accepted — it leaves a bit ter taste in the mouth if re peated over and over, in the face of the kalokohans we see roundabout us. Of course, there ought to be public trust in our offi cials. A government without that public trust will just disintegrate. It is said that in Britain there is plenty of public trust because it is an honor to be a public official there. To be a British pub lic official means great in tegrity, competence, unques tioned private honor, dedica tion and loyalty to high prin ciples — in a word, genuine exemplariness. TRUST? Now it is easy to preach to us common people that we must trust our public of ficials. We are willing to give that trust any time, but before we give it we have a few questions to ask. We may be common, but we are not stupid. When we talk about trust — whether it be trust in gov ernment or trust in an indi vidual person — is it not that trust must first be deserv ed before it can be given? Is it not that if trust is forced because of pressure brought to bear, it is meaningless? Like other good things, trust must be earned and, when earned, the means of earn ing it must still be examined before it can be judged to be deserved. If we use this rationale and accept it as our guide, do many of our public of ficials deserve public trust? When we read everyday about public officials being investigated for the accumu lation of easy wealth, when May 1966 15 we use public office to pro mote the interests of our fa mily and friends, when we disguise our hollowness and lack of integrity through “public relations” and adroit publicity, when we can turn about face and change our political party on a mere per sonal peeve, when public funds are wasted like water and we squeezes the people to keep paying their taxes religiously to support extra vagance and other brazen forms of saturnalia, when we use authority to persecute and bamboozle and harass — when we do these things, and more, how can you in the world generate public trust? What I am saying and re peating is that if the govern ment desires public support — a,nd thereby public confi dence — it must go into ho nes t-to-goodness reforms. Its officials must be exemplary. Many of our public officials never had it so good. The life of self-denial and thrift and self-effacement is a life despised. In its place is held aloft a life of garish show, the stress on facade, cheap publicity, the cornering of unusual .privileges, the abuse of authority, the feathering of the nest, and wrong ap pointments for important offices. Yes, indeed, I agree that we common people must shore up our government and officials with our un qualified trust, but the first move to merit that trust is clearly on the part of the government and the officials themselves. — Manila Bulle tin, Apr. 18/ 1966 by Rex D. Drilon. 16 Panorama
- pages
- 15+