A moral revolution? Why not?

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Let us not scoff at the report that a group of anti-corruption advocates has formed what they call a Council for Moral Revolution with the aim of cleansing this country's government and strengthening its people's moral will.

Let us not also let the fact that the personalities named as the organizers and leaders of the movement include some who are, or were themselves quite active in government, having occupied high positions or still holding on to them, and who had, at one time or another, also been suspect when some anomalies were exposed, arouse our cynicism.

The time has obviously come when all of us have to look into ourselves to see if we are doing anything to correct or stop the practices in government that have caused one of its officials to use the very appropriate description of its systems as “dysfunctional”.

The past years have shown to us many practices and many exposés of illegal transactions and inappropriate use of public funds involving some of the highest officials of the land. The same shamelessness and confidence in their impunity, have emboldened even those in local governments, and especially those who have the extraordinary fortune to be elected national officials, with their corresponding pork barrel allocations, to feather their nests, and use the money for their own personal purposes.

To this day, we still have so may of such scams exposed, but unpunished. There is for one, the abominable fertilizer scandal, where millions of our tax money had been palmed off to politicians who shamelessly diverted the amount, and even made barangay officials perjurers besides.

And this may go on and on until our country is ruined and our people's morals also destroyed. That is why, the efforts of some officials, some church, academe, and civil society leaders to launch what they call a “moral revolution” is still worth supporting. Let us remove the perception, which has somehow come to seem the truth, that “Everything and everybody in this country is for sale”.*