EDITORIAL! Is there hope for honesty?
IT MAY come as a surprise and may have offended others but Davao City Mayor Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio’s statement that politicians are liars is quite true.
“Nowhere in our Constitution does it require that a person to run for senator needs to be honest. There is a reason nganong dili na siya ginabutang dinha (why it’s not included there) because everyone lies. That is the truth,” she said.
Her statement reflects the sad reality of our current political system - a system full of lies and liars. It is also true that we, as humans, lie. It is a bad part of our nature.
Recently, Ilocos Norte Governor and senatorial candidate Imee Marcos who claimed to have graduated from Princeton University and the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law was accused of lying about studying in these institutions.
When we line up all the presidents since the fall of dictator and former president Ferdinand Marcos, they may have lied right in front of our faces one way or another and we may not notice it.
This is not the first case of lying done by politicians. However, this space is not enough if we name them one by one.
Whether it is a high ranking government position or down to barangay level government employees, those within the system have lied in front of our faces. How many government employees manning transactions have lied to us that they are unavailable to provide service to us when in fact they are attending to the requests of their friends or families? How many promises were made during the campaign season that politicians decided to forget about? How many times have some of us been told that we will be given assistance but it never came?
We may never know when lying entered the political system. Lying nowadays seemed to be deeply ingrained within the political system. Lies of corrupted government officers tearing our government apart.
Is there still hope for the Philippine political and government system to be cleansed of lying and be more transparent to its boss - the Fi l i pi nos?
Are the government’s efforts on getting rid of bad eggs within its system producing results? Reports have come out of corrupt officials being booted out but the smaller fishes within the system continue to be dishonest.
It is easy to call for the removal of lying politicians and government officials but the work to create an honest and clean government and political system will need strong political will and a lot of work.— Sunnex