Fudging and Filipino Legislators

Let me try to characterize the Philippine social value called "Fudging". If we flip through the Humpty Dumpty New World Dictionary, skipping past a particularly popular American obscenity because it is not relevant to his inquiry, we come across the definition we need:

• Fudging: a propensity to work around the edges of the law for personal gain.

It derives from the Latin word fudgare, which is the infinitive expression of a verb meaning "to cheat benignly". Roman gladiators used it when they laced their loin cloths with hot chili pepper, at least preserving their family valuables from the maws of hungry lions.

"Hey Ben Hur, pass the Tabasco sauce, eh?"

Well, the inquiring mind of Joe America sees the Philippine Congress as being in a bit of a predicament because fudging has been, until now, an accepted Filipino social value. But that has changed.

Bam! Has it changed.

It changed because we had the page turning, dial flipping drama of Chief Justice Corona biting the proverbial impeachment dust at the hands of his Excellency, President Aquino, who pursued the case like a pit bull on a fluffy toy poodle.

The heavy mace of punitive embludgenment (note to self; add this fine descriptive word to the HDNWD) was called an "SALN", a particularly simple document that asks elected officials to add up what they own and what they owe and put it on paper. But the math was a little much for the Chief Justice, no matter the 26 years of education you are likely to find in his curriculum vitae. So the President and all his men, and a few women to boot, whacked the Chief Justice upside the head and tossed him under the historical bridge like a log heading downriver into the West Philippine Sea.

Well, in truth, it was not the math that nailed the Chief Justice. It was fudging.

He skirted around the edges of the law on his SALN, concocting some weird interpretation of bank secrecy laws meaning that his hidden and potentially ill-gotten wealth could be socked away in a thick iron vault under no eyes but his own. He did not have to enter dollars on his SALN. That is the way an incompetent Chief Justice fudges. He interprets laws to his personal benefit.

The Chief Justice also intermingled money from businesses and relatives and his own accounts in such a web of confusion that it would take 23 senators from now to eternity to figure out exactly whose is what. That is another way to fudge.

Alas, whereas fudging was perfectly fine in 2011, and everybody was doing it. It is processa non grata in 2012. That is, it is illegal.

And double alas, we have a bunch of representatives who impeached the fluffy puppy and a bunch of senators who convicted him who are also sitting on SALN's prepared under the 2011 Filipino Code of Conduct, where "to fudge" carried a certain macho bearing, as "man, we are screwing ordinary citizens  and pulling the wool over their blind and ignorant eyes; aren't we rich and grand!"

If the spotlight turns on the hooks and crooks in the legislative math-making, we'll likely find half the government out on its ass in the middle of the road. So the legislators have called a "time out". They are huddling and muddling and trying to figure out a way out of these troublesome woods. Once they discover how screwed up the SALN's of their colleagues are, they must decide what to do.

I have an idea.

Just declare amnesty. Stamp each SALN "accepted as filed" and move on. But next year's damn well better be precise to the decimal points and it had better include dollars and Russian rubles and even that well-tattered scrap of paper called the euro.

Recognize that social values have changed.

People who lived by the old values ought not be punished because the rules have suddenly changed.

"Well, then, Chief Justice Corona should be pardoned," you might argue. "He should be given his job back."

No, no. His warped SALN was relevant to his competence, and the impeachment an expediency for a greater good. His error strewn SALN proved his judicial injudiciousness. There was no intent to prove theft; there was intent to prove bad ethical character. A Chief Justice is paid to be a law-based and high-minded arbiter of disputes. He is not supposed to use his expertise to manipulate laws for personal gain.

A legislator is not an objective arbiter of the laws. He is a writer of laws, wherein the laws reflect the preponderance of the political ideology in place at the time. In other words, a legislator is PAID to be political. A Chief Justice is paid to be NON-POLITICAL.

So the legislative SALN's that may not add up don't prove anything with regard to a legislator's ability to write laws. Besides, who needs the hassle of trying to sort out all that paper muck when Filipinos are starving and many poor women are uneducated about birth control?

The main point is to move on. Certainly, the Philippines loves a good blood bath. The sensationalist television stations would love to see hundreds of legislators with their eyeballs gouged out, lying in the middle of Roxas Boulevard or wherever they'd get dumped. And the tabloid press, masking as mainstream newspapers, would love to rumble out edition after edition of 196 point headlines screaming which legislators couldn't add things up right.

The legislators that FUDGED!

But, the glory of gore aside, it would be better to focus an intense spotlight on 2013 SALN's as the clear benchmark of present wealth. And then 2014 and subsequent years to examine change. 

The point is made.

The point is clear.

Fudging is now a swear word.

Move on. Get transparent, get honest, and get some bills passed.

When a Nation's Leaders are Puppets of Culture

Two incidents developed this past week that drove me up the wall. They had me muttering out loud:

•  "GIVE ME A BREAK!"

• "My God, is there no hope for this place?"

• "Is there no pride in excellence around here?"

I've taken two days to calm down . . . sorta . . .

I root for the Philippines, you know. To leave the pits of incompetence and poverty and cheating behind and rise as a healthy, wealthier, wholesome place to invest and live.

Mr. Aquino as far as I can tell has done five things in 2 1/2 years in office.

• He got elected, raising the hopes of millions.

• He jailed Ms. Arroyo and evicted Mr. Corona from the judicial throne, two huge exclamation points regarding his anti-corruption agenda.

• He articulated a firm foreign policy, rational toward both China and the US.

• He firmed up financial disciplines in expenditures and revenues.

• He got a good tourism minister and embarked on a promising tourism campaign.

He has notably not made progress hunting down and jailing  murderers of journalists or getting the HR Bill passed or fixing education (going to twelve years places more stress on buildings and teachers, already past the breaking point) or getting rid of the nation's feudal value infrastructure that allows cheating, broad-scale corruption, pollution, avoidance of personal responsibility and other vices to persist.

It would appear that Mr. Aquino is more of a puppet than I had imagined. A puppet to bad Filipino values. A man of the old culture, as evidenced by his getting his personal political nose into the House and Senate's impeachment business like a male dog searching for sex in a doggie harem. Overly sensitive. Macho posturing. Interfering with due process.

Now we have two more unhealthy practices, culturally engrained, front and center:

Chief Justice Nominees

I read about some of the potential nominees for the Chief Justice position and I am absolutely dismayed. The prominent criterion seems to be "close to President Aquino". This is the same old horseshit that Ms. Arroyo did with Mr. Corona. He was not picked for his legal credentials and OBJECTIVITY, but for his commitment to being non-objective and friendly to the Arroyo agenda.

One observation I have repeated over and over for the four years I've been participating in Filipino blogs is that the trade of favors is horrendously damaging to Philippine progress. I get no traction. Not with readers, not with any body. Yet it is so simple.

Being a friend has nothing to do with competence or getting things done well. It simply mucks up the system, as did Mr. Corona.

• Management 101, Principle Number 1: Have the courage and wisdom to hire people who are more competent than you are.

Corruption is on President Aquino's front burner. That's good. That was the President's campaign promise.  But let me positively scream this:

• THE FOCUS ON FAVORS RATHER THAN COMPETENCE IS MORE DAMAGING THAN CORRUPTION.

• How can you create jobs and wealth when you hire duds?

• How can you inspire competent people to stay in the Philippines if you are always hiring someone's uncle to be his boss?

You positively undermine value creation. Wealth creation. The dynamic drive for innovation and productivity. The only fire you light is under the BRAIN DRAIN!

Mr. Aquino appears to be engaged in a gross failure in values when he fails to comprehend the key judicial criteria for competence for a Chief Justice: apolitical, objective, grounded expertly in the law.

De Lima? The woman who heavy handedly botched the Arroyo case? Who herself interfered in the Corona case by blurting to the press "He is a walking constitutional violation!" ?

THAT judicial bearing? THAT removed objectivity?

THAT is her qualification? She stuck up for the President? Now she is in line to receive her return favor?

Who nominated her? Or Henares, another member of the President's cabinet. These two ought to be excluded specifically for the stain of likely bias. The PERCEPTION that they are biased, in a judicial chair, becomes a REALITY when they vote the "wrong way". They inevitably lose trust. A judge MUST be trustworthy for his decisions to be received constructively.

I hope the JBC tightens up and sends forward the nominations that would be best for the Judiciary, not for President Aquino.

Haranguing the Rating Agencies

The Philippines sent its financial people to the U.S. to visit the rating agencies (Standard & Poor's and Moody's) to try to wheedle and whine investment grade ratings from them.

"You need to modify your criteria" was basically the Philippine's position. "When countries such as Spain, which is facing bankruptcy, are higher than the Philippines, something is wrong."

The rating agencies' response was on the order of, "when you have per capita income of about $1,300 per year, you don't have the foundation of stability that is needed for a stronger rating; when revenue sources are unreliable and leak like a sieve, you don't have the stability you need."

That's the point, isn't it?

The Philippines ought not to condemn the rating agencies, or wheedle and beg on the international stage, but ought to understand the rationale for a strong rating. Upon understanding the rationale, come home and implement programs that would strengthen its financial practices.

• LIKE PASS THE HR BILL TO STOP THE RELENTLESS OVERBIRTHING THAT KEEPS THE PER CAPITA INCOME SO FRICKIN' LOW!!!

• LIKE PLUG THE CHEATING AND BAD PRACTICES THAT SUCK TAXES AWAY.

• LIKE GET RID OF BANK SECRECY LAWS THAT PROTECT CROOKS AND SCOUNDRELS.

By applying the best of the worst in Philippine values, these financial yokels go whining and try to humiliate the rating agencies. They make excuses and play the victim.

I get embarrassed every time a top Filipino ambassador does this kind of thing. It is the same low-class mentality that claimed Jessica Sanchez was robbed because the U.S. is racist.

No, the show's audience liked the other singer better.

How can a people who place such a value on MACHO be such whiners? How is it they cannot grasp a sense of strong personal responsibility, and attach THAT to being manly. Or womanly.

These are PROFESSIONALS!! AMBASSADORS. TOP LEADERS. EDUCATED PEOPLE!

Incredible.

I need a smoke.

And I don't smoke.

I need a drink.

And I don't drink (much).