By Teodoro Bacani Jr.

There are many things that need to be done in 2009, if we are to live better lives, and if we are to be a better society. But there are few things as urgent as speaking and living according to the truth. Our society has plodded through crisis after crisis, and we have been laggards in human development largely because we have not valued the truth and put it into practice.

Unpleasant though it may be, we have to lay a big part of the blame on the leadership of our country. President Arroyo must be ranked not only as the most unpopular president after Marcos, but also as the least credible. She will be known for announcing that she would not seek election in the 2004 elections and then reneging on her words afterwards. When she did run for president, her “Hello Garci” call which was exposed to public hearing placed her election to the presidency in doubt. Her subsequent apology for making that call was neither believed nor accepted by the Filipino public. After she took over from the ousted President Estrada, she promised in a press conference that her husband would have nothing to do with governance. Events have tended to show that he was not only very much involved in governance but was also deeply involved in corruption. She has repeatedly promised to work against corruption in the government, but has become a prime suspect herself in the uncontrolled graft and corruption in our country.

For me, personally, two remarks I heard/read recently illustrate the nadir to which the President’s credibility has sunk. Last Dec. 30, I was talking to an uncle of mine in Pampanga. We were going to a funeral parlor to bless the body of his departed mother-in-law. When he told me that her name was Gloria, I remarked that she had the same name as the President. He blurted out in Pampango, “Kalaram na!” (What a liar!), referring to the President.

The second instance was the comment of a critic of the President who wrote that he knew with absolute certainty that GMA and her allies would attempt to ram through Charter change to keep Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in power. His proof: “because GMA says she won’t.”

The administration of PGMA will forever be marked not only by the “Hello Garci” scandal and its aftermath, but also by the executive privilege which has been successfully been invoked by Romulo Neri, and the lies that have characterized the testimony of Joc-joc Bolante. This administration has survived on a diet of lies, half-truths and broad mental reservations. People know it, and no matter what the President says about de-prioritizing politics and attending to the economy, people will no longer believe her.

Unfortunately, the virus of lies and deceit has already spread wide and deep in the social fabric of our country. We have all been affected by this virus in varying degrees. Many no longer really care for the truth. What they care about is what works for them, what will enable them to survive and thrive. They believe that the truth cannot feed them, anyway, and those who have dared to tell the truth have ended up either marginalized or dead. They no longer dare to seek the truth, to stand up for it and to make it prevail. In truth, one of the biggest casualties of the GMA regime is the truth.

But, as Pope Benedict XVI pointed out in the first World Day of Prayer for Peace Message after he was elected Pope, there cannot be peace unless human relations in society are based on the truth. If we are in crisis and disarray, the deepest reason is not economic but moral: it is the lack of concern to base our dealings with each other on the truth. That is why it is gratifying to see written in bold letters on a tarpaulin hanging behind the statue of Our Lady of Peace along Edsa, the words, “The Truth Will Set You Free.” The Catholic radio station, Radio Veritas, has also been trumpeting this slogan which comes from the lips of our Lord himself. We ignore it to our own peril.

Early in the year, let us make the resolve to be true to ourselves and to God, to speak the truth, to do the truth, and to live in the truth. This is the way to life and to peace not only in 2009 but always.