My heart broke last week when a most respected and loved columnist wrote that he didn’t mind a president with mistresses, but wouldn’t abide a liar and a cheat. I’m still in mourning. I don’t understand how infidelity can be acceptable if integrity is the primary requirement for a leader. In order to govern with integrity, that leader must first live it.
Integrity isn’t something you put on for work and hang in the closet in exchange for your slippers at the end of the day. It lives in your bones. It holds you upright no matter where you are, no matter who you’re with. Integrity cannot be fragmented. This is why I cannot imagine settling for a leader who might be able to govern well but will repeatedly cheat on his wife. Infidelity corrupts the soul of families and predisposes innocent children to a future of lies and deceit. Some will argue that what their families don’t know or see won’t hurt them but I say these are the very things that will wound them deeply. Children do not have to see the details, but everything that happens in and around them—everything the parents carry in their souls—are imbibed by them unconsciously and will sprout into god-knows-what in adulthood. The dawning of this reality altered the course of my life and continues to influence it.
During a recent PAGASA forum, Fr. Albert Alejo of EHEM! spoke about "The Culture of Corruption". He said corruption kills. Corruption in the DOH robs sick people of medicine. Corruption in the DENR causes landslides. It does kill. Cheating on your family is corruption of the first water. It deprives them of clarity and health of soul. It robs them of truth and choice. Cheating is cheating. There are no degrees. A president who has a mistress is already a cheat. If he can betray those he vowed to love and cherish, what is it to him to wound an entire nation of faceless men and women?
A reader recently wrote that at least GMA is the devil that we know. By asking for special elections, he felt PAGASA was exposing the Philippines to a greater danger—that of a devil we don’t know. I could have wept. Settle for a devil we know? How can we settle for any kind of evil? This is why PAGASA’s first and foremost call is for inner change. What is inside will inevitably seep out into the world. It cannot be held in. What is rotten will not bear fruit. There is no way around it.
We are in this mess because corruption has become convenient. We shake our heads, might feel a twinge of guilt or remorse but do it anyway. We make a u-turn where we shouldn’t because going the right way will eat up time already taken away by the unbearable traffic. Everyone else is doing it anyway. Why go the extra mile? Anyway, we can pay our way through with cash or rank, especially if we are a government official. All we need to do is flash our infamous face to the traffic enforcer and we’re off. We tell our children drugs are dangerous but indulge in them because we know what we’re doing. Besides, we’re only social users. We instruct our helpers to tell callers we’re not home, even as our children look on perplexed. Aren’t we home, right by the phone? What does it teach them about us, about life, about what it means to be a fully responsible, socially engaged Filipino?
Even as we call for change, very few are calling for the fundamental change of the Filipino himself. But that is impossible. We cannot change structures, if those who will inhabit them are not changed. We cannot expect a clean government if those who run it do not hold integrity as an incorruptible value. We cannot expect our children to be citizens of truth if we habitually negate our vows—words we uttered on our own, aloud, in Church, before a priest, before the image and likeness of the Christ.
We are human and sin is part of our destiny, but how we consciously transform it makes all the difference. When the dust has settled and we start picking through the rubble, do we resolve to become better people and will the changes, or do we shed tears, make all the appropriate noises, and then fall back into the cycle of untruth?
We cannot change anything in government if we are not willing to make the changes in our personal lives. What good is a clean government if society continues to tread the muddy path? Everything begins at home. If we are going to demand integrity of our leaders, we should aim for the whole package. I fully accept the humanity and weakness of every leader, but I do care that he or she always strives for wholeness and good.
Integrity from within is the only kind that brings true and lasting change. Everything else is fluff.
Feb 2006
