Truth is like a Lion

“The truth shall set us free”. 

And as law that is based on truth;

The truth maybe harsh; 

but it is the truth.

What is in truth that forbids the Aquino Government of the Philippines from unleashing the truthful and lion-like Freedom of Information Bill? Except for untruthfulness to conceal corruption, I can think of any other reason. A Filipino idiom states that a relationship based on honesty or truth is bound to succeed. Similarly, a relationship based on dishonesty and deceit is bound to fail.

Love is based on freedom. But freedom, from the word free, to some degree, must have a restraint. Oppose to freedom are chains, restrain, control, prison walls, slavery, etc.; there are many forms of freedom and slavery. Here in the Philippines, where corruption is rampant; there is an enormous amount of wicked freedom for the rich, the few, and the powerful to enslave the populace, to furthermore confine them in the shackles of poverty.

Greed based on lust is the most common yet the most subtle among the shackles of slavery. Everyone, in different degree, is enslaved by insatiable lust, which is almost impossible to satisfy. Like an itch, the more a person scratch, the more he itched.  The bigger the belly of a man, the bigger the quantity of his food intake; the bigger the have, the bigger the want; the greater the amount of money a rich man has, the greater the desire to accumulate more. 

  

“Public service is a public trust.” According to President Noy Aquino “The Filipino people are my Boss”; if indeed they are, then the people have all the rights to know what is going on in their government. Information, knowledge, facts, intelligence, data, records, etc., all of which are vital elements of a clean and healthy government. The reluctance of The Aquino Administration to pass into law the FOI Bill brings out a subtle notion that the President himself is hiding something; that he is not honest and truthful, that he is not an anti-corruption leader, that he is not as what he said he is. He is a disobedient servant who is rejecting the will of his master; who refuse to reveal the information that the master wants. With the absence of truth, the “straight path” that P-Noy brags about is but a fast-path to hell.

Relying on his battle-cry against corruption and on his claim that he has a hero’s bloodline, I am one of the million hopeful Filipinos who voted for him for President. “Never trust a politician,” according to a wise man; my hopefulness had made me forget that he could be nothing but another politician who will most likely represent, protect, and enhance the interest of the oligarch, the rich, the powerful, the political party, the businessperson, the landlords, etc., the group of people with greater amount of greed by which he belongs. It is said, given a chance, a single person will consume the whole planet to satisfy a piggish appetite. The Freedom of Information Bill is one way of minimizing that voracity, an act that a group of powerful human crocodiles with piggish appetite certainly will not allow. As Corporate Greed is real, a rich man’s greed is also real.

Clearly, the Philippine government under the Presidency of Noynoy Aquino is afraid of this Truthful Lion (The Freedom of Information Bill); because despite the effort and insistence of one of their party mates, they have done nothing to set it free. Just like a person, for a nation to be happy, first, it must be free. Corruption binds this country more than any other shackles and there is an urgent need to break that chain. Unfortunately, by the attitude of the present government towards the FOI BILL; clearly, it is not incline to free this country from bondage. Seemingly, what it really wanted is for us to remain in chain. 


Mostly of  the corruption in the government occurred in the secret deals that were signed in the dead of the night of some political alligators under the greedy administrative table. The FOI bill is a light that could have turned the night into a day, brought  the dead back to the living, sent the crocodiles back to the swamp, and cleanse the remnants of greed on the government’s table. Dismally, the ostensibly double talking President, who brags that he is not corrupt but an anti-corruption advocate; simply by doing nothing, turned off the light so that the greedy crocodiles of the government, under his leadership, could feast in the dark.

The Presidential campaign slogan of Philippine President Noynoy Aquino, which states that if there is no corrupt government, there is no poor people, (Kung Walang Corrupt Walang Mahirap) apparently, is only a presidential lip service. They called it “Tuwid na Daan”, which means a straight or righteous path. In theory, a straight person is a person with less if not with no vice, immorality, or defect; similarly, a straight government should be a government with lesser flaw or imperfection. But is this possible?  Are these kind of people exist in the wicked world of Philippine politics?


Even during the Presidential campaign period, despite the enormous hope of the populace that Noynoy Aquino, being the only son of Philippine modern day heroes, was heaven sent; there were already doubts in my mind. The visibly large amount of campaign money spent that flooded during the election period was the main reason for my doubts. I was thinking, where did those money came from? Like Noynoy Aquino, was it also heaven sent? We are not born yesterday; we all know that like Aquino, those political funds did not fall from heaven. Those money came from people with vested interest, whose goals are money and power. And once the political bet of these investors wins, the winning candidate’s primary duty is to return the profitable investment. Surrounded by this kind of people, even if we set aside his own greed, we can just imagine the mindset of a leader, who even at the start was already indebted to greed. 
   

In a corrupt government, a leader need not be a strong leader but a talkative leader. He will be a corrupt fine leader (if not a great leader) if he is a leader who likes to double talk, who is a natural or a professional liar,  a lip service expert. Definitely, there will be lots of stinky skeletons hidden in a corrupt organization. And whenever there would be a leak of dirty information, no less than the big boss must convinced the media and the public that there is none. “Tell me who your friends are, I’ll tell you who you are”; fame, power, wealth, these are things that attract not the saints. To please the majority, if not everyone, a good leader (?), to some or a great degree, at least, must be a good liar.

As I remember, like his mother, President Noy is a reluctant Presidential candidate who went to a retreat to pray and ask God’s guidance before he accepted the Presidential candidacy. The war against corruption cannot be won by the President alone; the oppressed silent majority, undoubtedly, are more than willing to stand by his side if he would truly go against corruption.  And the Freedom of Information Bill is the rare chance for him to fulfill his promise. But it is unfortunate that for some inconceivable twisted unknown reason, he chose to somehow let go-off the chance. For the Filipino people, the FOI Bill is The King of All Law against Corruption; it would have been the real landmark of the Aquino administration instead of the most controversial, divisive, US injected, and definitely very and deeply corrupt RH bill of evil. 


“When nonsense is common, common sense is not common”.  Presidency, no doubt, is not an easy job. Despite my apparent harsh criticism on Noynoy Aquino; still, he is my President. I voted for him, and he is the only son of my heroes. I don't want him to fail. But I do understand that, wherever and whoever he is, a man, every day and every hour must make a decision. And as always, there are two basic choices: to please  others or to please oneself; to do evil, or to do good; for God’s glory, or for own selfish grandeur; for the chosen few, or for the neglected minions; for the corrupted, or for the corruptors. No one can serve two opposing masters at the same time, and no one can at the same time please both. As heaven, or hell, is only a matter of choice.
  

Victory is where there is truth.