Pittsburg, CA 18th February 2008: I just finished reading a short write-up purportedly written by Rodolfo Jun Lozada, a permanent fixture in the news these past weeks, regarding Sec. Romulo Neri’s reasons why he continue to inhibit himself from participating in the Senate’s probe of the ZTE-NBN scandal. This piece was released by Vicente Romano III, convenor of the Black and White Movement. It contained startling ideas and possibilities that may or may not be happening in Sec. Neri’s mind and conscience. If some of the reasons posited by Lozada really come from Neri, then I salute the secretary for having brilliantly dissected the whole problem of corruption in government and give him enough credit to choose silence as the better part of patriotism.
While I can readily accept Lozada’s closeness to Sec. Neri to make him privy to some of Neri’s dealings in government, the lack of hard evidence and absence of corroborative witness from Sec. Neri himself make his write-up appear to be based on conjectures and speculations. At the very least, it can be dismissed as hearsay or gossip, the main fuel that drives the flame of passion of the most political among the masses today. But spurious it may be, I suggest that people with discriminating minds should read it as it affirms the downward spiral of corruption not only among ferocious beasts of our political system but also the apolitical professionals managing various government agencies.
The martial law years produced a new breed of civil servants, they were called “technocrats.” Mostly coming from the academe and private sector, these experts were tapped by Marcos to head and streamline government agencies. They lack political sophistication and rely only on their academic training and business experience. Largely through their efforts, the first half of the martial law years can be considered as an economic miracle. But as every good thing must end, the same innocent and naïve technocrats became infected by the gross and grime of politics, eventually being corrupted by a system so decadent that even today two words describe the government: corruption and efficiency. Whereas before the government was corrupt, today it is efficiently corrupt!
How can one technocrat maintain his purity in the midst of corruption? The Bible offers two passages I can relate to the problem faced by technocrats like Sec. Neri. The first is Psalms 1:1-3, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruits in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.”
Three words are important to understand in this passage. First is the “walking” in the counsel of the wicked. While we live in a corrupt and perverse world, we shouldn’t live like them. The scripture is full of exhortation to be separate, meaning not being associated with sin. The moment we walk in the way of this world system, we begin to go down the wicked path. After walking we “stand”. Picture yourself walking in the street full of temptations, you may consider yourself strong and imagine you can always get back to the correct path, yet something tickles your fancy and aroused your curiosity, so you stopped walking, you stand there for a minute to catch sight of it. Now you are not just passing through but begins to gratify yourself. The third thing happens eventually, you “sit”, and by sitting you take pleasure out of it.
The second passage is found in Romans 5:6-10, and for purposes of brevity, I’ll just quote three key phrases, “…when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly …. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us …. When we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to him…”
We must always be aware that there is dynamics involved in corruption. When it starts, it gradually spawn into a life of its own. The first phrase tells us that we are weak and powerless. We were not born corrupted, we are just born with a corrupted nature. We can not do otherwise because of the sinful nature. How many times we hear people say, “I am just human!” You don’t have to teach a baby how to lie, he will eventually learn how to lie! So we better be aware that there is that seed of corruption inside of all of us and we have to put it always in subjection. The next thing is that the second phase of sin in our lives is the practice of sin. We don’t have only the tendency to sin but actually choose to sin, that’s why we are called sinners! We can forgive a seemingly innocent boy because he doesn’t know any better but a grown man who knew what is right and what is wrong and still choose to be wrong makes him a willful sinner! Now the willful sinner graduates to a third level, that is an enemy of God. After willfully sinning, the man begins to enjoy what he’d been doing and puts himself directly against the will of God, having a seared conscience mocks God by declaring “I like it here and I don’t want you!”
A drama film based on a Stephen King novel was made in 1994. It’s entitled Shawshank Redemption. In one of the scenes, Ellis Boyd “Red” Redding, played by Morgan Freeman, explains to the young inmates the irrational behavior of old-man Brooks Hatlen who had been inside the penitentiary for 50 years. At first when they get over at the prison, they hated it, they rebel and had the energy to defy the system. But after a while they come to grips with reality and they learn to accept it. A few more years they become comfortable living inside the prison walls and then at the end, most lifers begin to enjoy life in prison, dreading the day when they are released to society again. Red called Brooks as being “institutionalized”.
Perhaps Sec. Neri is already institutionalized, we don’t really know. But the same passages of Scripture tells us that it’s possible to resist being corrupted by an evil system. In Psalms it admonishes us to immerse ourselves with the Word of God, like water that cleanses day and night. In Romans 5, it assures us that in whatever stage you might be in the corruption process, it’s always the redeeming sacrifice of Christ that is available for us to be saved.
A shining example of a technocrat who came out of the martial law years unscathed by corruption is former Prime Minister Cesar Virata. Another one I suppose is former Agriculture Minsiter Salvador Escudero III, father of present Senator Francis Joseph Escudero. These examples might offer a ray of hope for government technocrats to begin their walk towards redemption.
