Stitching the Worn-Out

Stitching the worn-out

  “For the people, by the people” a worn-out tagline of the Philippine government that is often misinterpreted by most of its citizen. The rise and fall of the country’s governance made it more impossible for the people to see its visibility. What does the word ‘people’ in the tagline really means? To whom is this tagline pertained to? Are the government officials and elites the only people that get benefits from this line? Are they only the one whose pockets are growing? News says that economic growth is happening, but do we really feel it? All these questions just kept rolling on my mind when I’ve read and analyzed how Confucius’ ideas reflect how our government is turning out.

   In the Confucian ideal type, good officials rather than laws are the primary instruments of governance (Frederickson, 2002). When I read “Confucius and the Moral Basis of Bureaucracy”, I felt that my understanding had deepened more in line with the main problem of our government – and that is, the people inside itself. Government officials and corruption are now words with a strong binding agent, that when one word flows out of a person’s mouth, the latter one just kept on flowing too. There are several reasons that officials are now what they are, because just like everything else, they did not pop out of nowhere. At the Section 2 of the reading, some central features of Confucianism can be related as to how officials are now being corrupt and as what they are.

    Constitutions and laws are the foundation of most democratic government, but as to Confucian hostility, laws foster amorality. Laws make us act legally yet immorally, laws tell us what not to do but seldom tell us what to do, laws foster ruthlessness and the tendency to make the rules to favor one’s interests over those of others (Frederickson, 2002). Applying this statement to our government officials, it just brought out the foremost problem in our main problem. Laws make officials think that they have the power to have what they want without having the penalty to bother them. According to Confucius, a society has lost its basic values, common traditions, and civilized conventions when it resorts to amendments. As for the Philippines, it is now without a doubt, a country with moral illness. Government officials whose involved in different kind of corruptions just demonstrates how our people neglects the basic values we all have. Instead of making laws to refine the nation, why not make laws on refining their own first? They said that change starts within ourselves but for my opinion, if we are seeking for a change in the country, the one that should initiate are those that are sitting well in their position in the government but are not standing well as a leader of the country. Senators, a great example there is for those officials who are compulsively making unnecessary laws without the thought that these laws would just add up to the pile of problems that our nation is facing. Compulsive lawmaking and constant judicial interventions are the symptoms of moral illness (Leys in Frederickson, 2002). I became abruptly curious as to how it is if Confucians reject the rule of law and favor the rule of man, what sort of man would this be? Hardly to think, but it seems that having laws in our country is already a mess; however Philippines without laws is inconsiderable for it is not even imaginable. I can foresee how politicians would grab the chance to do whatever they want in the government; I can foresee corrupt officials would turn to riot on how they would divide the country’s money all by themselves.

     Confucius developed an entirely new concept of rulers and rule; he took an old word, junzi, which meant a hereditary ruler or gentleman (Frederickson, 2002). Political dynasty is the sheer term of this concept in the Philippines’ perspectives, which is long done by generations of politicians in different parts and sectors of the government. Though this Confucian concept is supposed to build good officials in the government, it came differently and negatively in ours that even this concept became one of the root causes of corruption in the country. Political dynasties are composed of elites that are small groups of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth and political power. In the case of our government, elites are not just small groups but families with numerous connections with one another. It became bedrock of corruption for these families tend to use the country’s funds and resources for their own benefits; they also find it easy to gain access to different sectors of the government where they can manipulate the people and use manpower to increase their wealth. Alongside these political elites is a standing constitution against them which is not literally standing for it is only posed by several senators but neglected by most because even inside the Supreme Court, political elites had already dominated.