Flaunting (what) power?

When I was still teaching Political Law, the views offered by students on the dictum that “public office is a public trust” were always varied and unpredictable. There were times that opinions appeared outlandish and untrammelled as others, depending upon the students’diverse backgrounds, sounded unbelievably grotesque or incredibly funny. My difficult challenge then as a teacher was to canalize those thoughts in the context contained by established jurisprudence.

A perspective that maybe culled from this constitutional provision is that when a person gets elected to a public office he gets restricted in some of his otherwise private actions. His election to office carries with it a heavy welter of responsibility that he is not subjected to when an ordinary citizen. Because of his elevation to a public position, he becomes a model for people, especially the young, to emulate such that whatever he does is brought to public scrutiny.

The term public office covers both elective and appointive government positions from the highest office of the presidency down to barangay kagawad. Such expression as “p___ ina mo” that Pres Rodrigo Duterte publicly blurts out very often is not supposed to be uttered by a public official. If Duterte were only a private citizen, calling our God “stupid” could perhaps be charged to his constitutionally guaranteed free speech. But he holds a public office! The speaker of the House of Representatives, as a plain citizen without an elective office, could have perhaps displayed in public a woman other than his wife with less uproar but public trust frowns upon such obvious callous act of apparent infidelity.

Here in Cebu City, a scene in a hotel that went viral is within the purview of public office being a public trust. A newly elected barangay chairman reportedly escorted a man who is not her husband to a hotel room. When security personnel tried to validate if they were registered hotel guests, she blew her top. A footage even showed her and her partner inflicting some physical harm upon the hotel employee.

Let us break that report down to appreciable parts. First, that the lady official allegedly escorted a man to a hotel room. True or not, it was their private affair. Whether they wanted to go inside a hotel room to pray the rosary together or not was their own act. The salacious implication would only affect their lives if the lady were not an elected official. This is where the difference lies. Their reported going as a twosome in the direction of a hotel room assumed an entirely repulsive perspective simply because she is holding a public office. As an officer, she carries the burden of conducting herself in a moral way. Her constituency demands a strict moral behavior from her.

Second, her alleged reaction to the personnel who was just doing security protocol. As reported, it must have been really offensive for her to be asked if she was a registered guest. Feeling offended, she and her companion could have assaulted the hotel man with surprising ferocity. Except for the fact that a criminal case, if one is filed against her, would be captioned “PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES VS SO AND SO” the public would have little interest on it. But, her public office demands that she should have approached the situation with calm disposition rather than with swagger.

Mayor Tomas Osmena, in a television footage, described rather appropriately the action of the barangay captain. If I recall correctly, Osmeña’s words were “she flaunts her power.” The mayor meant that the village chief wanted to show, even if wrongly, that her election as chairperson gave her ascendancy. He must have remembered an incident, years ago. Osmeña, then a new city mayor, flaunted his own power when he reportedly thrashed to the ground the “barbecue” of one Willer Sanchez. To me, both acts of the barangay captain, recently, and the mayor’s, years ago, were in breach of “public office is a public trust.”