Editorial

Poor examples

EVERYWHERE we look these days, we see government officials setting poor examples.

In an amazing feat of moral dexterity, the Agrarian Reform secretary, who watched as his son, a mayor, and bodyguards inflict a beating on a 56-year-old man and his 14-year-old son at a golf course, apologized without admitting fault. In fact, the secretary is adamant?the other side started the brawl, he insists, as if this excuses in any way the violence that followed. Then, with what seems like a touch of arrogance, he declares that he still has the full confidence of the President.

At the House of Representatives, the Justice secretary openly disagrees with his prosecutors, while drug enforcement agents speak of attempts to bribe them, but do nothing to apprehend those who offered the bribe. The agents, in turn, complain bitterly about prosecutors who dismiss drug-related charges against affluent suspects.

The chairman of the Commission on Human Rights sides with law breakers when she asks the Supreme Court to defend squatters, blithely ignoring the property rights of legitimate land owners and earning the ire of the chairman of the Metro Manila Development Authority, which has launched a campaign against illegal settlers.

The chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government admits he tried to influence his brother, an appeals court justice, in a high-profile legal dispute. Even though he now faces disbarment over the incident, he continues to hold office at the commission, and puts the Palace-appointed officer-in-charge in the freezer.

Now we have the Environment secretary threatening to take over control of the Subic free port because administrators there have done nothing to protect trees that companies in the zone are planning to cut down.

Any one of these cases is enough to weaken public confidence in government. Taken together, these incidents speak of an administration that has lost control over its personnel, or worse, a government that tolerates unlawful acts by its own officials.

It is high time the President stepped in to impose order in her house. Failure to do so would only work in her critics? favor and strengthen their accusations about her administration.