By Teodoro Bacani Jr.

Thank God there are many patriotic Filipinos who dare to transform our corrupt political culture. They devise practical ways of changing our politics and are not content to criticize or merely talk. But often the idealism of political reformers (“transformers” would be a better word) either runs aground or breaks their necks against prevailing political realities. I do not want to ask such people to renounce their idealism. We need idealists more than ever today. But idealism should be tempered with a modest dose of realism. This I would like to suggest in this piece.

I think political idealists should recognize “the law of gradualness.” This was spoken of approvingly by Pope John Paul II in “Familiaris Consortio,” his pastoral exhortation on the family. The late Pope contrasted this law of gradualness, which he approved, with “the gradualness of the law” of which he disapproved. The law of gradualness means that we human beings who are weak and sinful move to moral perfection only gradually. People, especially confessors and counselors should take this reality seriously. Thus, a profligate Don Juan may gradually diminish the number of his illicit sexual affairs. If he moves gradually from 10 women to seven women, to five women, and then to three, the confessor, while not approving of his failures will nevertheless congratulate him for his progress in diminishing his affairs. Though the illicit affairs have not yet all been eliminated, the sinner must be encouraged to keep up his prayers and efforts.

The gradualness of the law, on the other hand, means that the law should not be considered binding on those who are still weak and unable to comply with the law perfectly. The Pope rejects this gradualness of the law, while making allowance for the weakness of those who are unable to keep it perfectly.

Another moral reality that political idealists should make allowance for is “necessary evil.” In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 13, the Lord told the parable of the darnel (wheat). A man sowed good seed in his field, but his enemy came and sowed darnel among the wheat. When both the wheat and darnel were growing, the servants wanted to pull out the darnel right away. But the owner replied, “No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it. Let them both grow till the harvest...” In this flawed world, we oftentimes have to allow evil to continue to exist lest we cause greater harm by eliminating evil right away.

I had a very personal experience of this in the physical field. Once, I was prescribed an overdose of steroids for a throat ailment. When I told this to my brother, he confirmed that I was taking too heavy a dose of the steroids. But when I asked him whether I should stop taking the steroids immediately, he asked me not to stop abruptly taking them, because if I did so, there would be harm to my system. He told me to gradually decrease my intake of the steroids until I could stop taking them altogether.

All right-minded and good-hearted Filipinos will want to eliminate corrupt politicians and corrupt practices immediately, if possible. But sometimes, we have to consider whether the total and immediate elimination of corrupt practices and people may be ill-advised and cause greater harm in the long run. Should we perhaps tolerate some corrupt practices and politicians while working to gradually eliminate them from our political system?

In practice, should an idealistic party like Ang Kapatiran be willing to take in some trapos instead of excluding them totally from their slate? Will accommodations that may allow for victory in the polls be a necessary evil even as the members of this party work for a totally clean political culture? And should a local government executive tolerate the continuance of some corrupt practices if the immediate elimination of their perpetrators may result in greater harm?

I know that it may not be easy to discern when tolerance of a necessary evil is called for, and when the law of gradualness should be applied. But I submit that being a good political party does not mean that all the candidates of the party are pure, or that being a good governor means that no corrupt practices are tolerated at all. Good politics is the art of the possible, and correct compromises are also part of good politics.