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Batas Mauricio

THE one single but most telling admission that President Aquino’s “righteous governance” glaringly failed despite his being the head of government for six years came not from his political enemies or detractors, but from his own personal choice to lead the battle against graft and corruption in 2010, his Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales.

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In a press statement which appeared online on February 01, 2016 (see http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/760389/ombudsman-so-many-in-govt-are-corrupt), Morales decried the existing “super number of corrupt government officials throughout the bureaucracy”. She said corruption remains prevalent in government, which is a flat admission that Aquino bungled his campaign to stamp out graft during his six years in office.

Well, if the truth be told, it was clear right from the start that Aquino had nothing but bravado and mere sloganeering in his supposed campaign against graft and corruption. While he popularized the slogan “walang mahirap kung walang korap” (there is no poverty if there is no corruption), he meant it only to win votes, which he sadly did, but there was no definite plan of action to achieve that dream, just like in every other election promise he made.

To all voters who profess faith in God, no matter what your religions maybe, let us band together now and assure the election of candidates in the May 2016 elections who fear and love God, and who have a track record of publicly displaying that fear and love of God everyday, not only during election time.

For too long a time, we have given our votes to people who do not deserve to be elected because they have no agenda for God but only agenda for themselves and their families, and it is clear that this has caused misery, pain, suffering, and utmost poverty to many of us. For too long a time, candidates who were even ashamed to talk about God in their campaign—and thus took God for granted when they ultimately won—have been winning.

If we want to change ourselves and our country for the better, we, as believers of God who fear and love Him truthfully and sincerely, must now insist to ask candidates if they even have any plan to pursue spirituality and righteousness if they get elected, and, if possible, to ask them to write down and sign this plan and its specifics, so we can hold them accountable to it afterwards.

Marietta Reyes, an avid reader of our daily Facebook posts our English and Filipino columns at www.facebook.com/attybatas, sent a question to me: if we require candidates to present an agenda on God, or on how to strengthen the spirituality and righteousness of our people, are we not violating the doctrine of the separation of Church and State?

Well, this query is not new, and, in fact, had already been explained in the past by a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Artemio Panganiban. As we said in our past items here: “Indeed, as former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban so ably pointed out, there is no separation of the Philippines, as a state, from God even if in its Constitution it has decreed a separation of the church and state.

“Basically, Panganiban is saying that the Philippines as a state believes in God, and that even its present Constitution, promulgated by the first President Aquino in 1987, confirms that belief in God by its invocation of the Almighty God’s aid.

“That being the case, there should really be no problem as there should be no serious objection if government leaders, no matter what their religion maybe, would be pushing spirituality as a way of life, as distinguished from mere religious affiliation among Filipinos, in an attempt to improve their economic status.”

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