It does baffle me how sometimes it just feels like the double standards are insane and unbelievable. Ever feel like something is so blatant but it feels like no one else is commenting on it, so you start questioning yourself?
I kind of felt that when I found out about the little LTO official’s mishap this week, that little drunk-driving incident from a government official in the middle of a worsening tragedy of vehicular accidents, not without casualties, mind you.
And what struck me wasn’t the fact that a government official who works for the transport office was violating laws governing transportation. Honestly, comically ironic violation of the law is par for the course in this country, and even when it isn’t lawful (merely awful), irony is common. People in charge of the law being criminals is something we have a lot of.
No, what stood out to me is that the official statement from the city government withheld the face and name of the official.
(For the curious, his name is Edilberto Bongaoen, as named by DOTr Secretary Vince Dizon when he was publicly sacked.)
In the same breath, in the same statement, le meyor Magalong cast disdain on the unnamed official for being a bad egg, for being against the push for Good Governance™.
What I question is: as a public official who should logically be punished by removal from public service, why exactly are we withholding this person’s identity? They are a public official, paid with public money, endangering public safety. Shouldn’t the public be entitled to know who this public nuisance is at the minimum, that we may fling shame and vitriol at them for their hypocrisy?
Surely Good Governance™ includes the people knowing the people who are practicing the antithesis while in a public post? Why not give the people the opportunity to shame this person who was given the public trust and then let it down? Why hide his name (Edilberto Bongaoen)?
Sure, shame doesn’t do anything nowadays; not that it ever has in the face of the corrupt, but at the very least the shame should still be there—give the public the chance to know who has wronged them on their money.
Because when a member of the populace commits something criminal, similarly criminal, you can be assured that there are no such qualms about hiding their identity in the majority of cases.
(Journalism standards do hold some rules for who and when can be publicly identified, and there are certain crimes where it is in the best interest of everyone that no one be named. Rest assured that drunk driving into a government official and being hostile to cops is not one of them.)
It isn’t even a question of fairness at this point, because things should not be fair here.
Government officials cannot be treated the same as regular citizens—they should be subject to a higher standard. These are supposed to be our betters, the ones who will lead our development forward.
Strict should be strict. And strict for the officials should be stricter than for us “regular” mortals.
