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Batas Mauricio .

IN the face of conflicting sentiments occasioned by the ouster of Maria Lourdes Aranal Sereno as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by her fellow magistrates on Friday, I wish to make a plea to the part of the Filipino nation that still thinks before speaking any word, or before acting in any way.

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At this point in our country’s history, it should be clear to everyone that Sereno’s ouster would bring about more division and more disputes among our people, who even now are already well-divided and enmeshed in deep dissension for one reason or another. This forebodes more ill for the future of our already troubled country, as the division and dissension among our people would surely take a longer while to heal.

That is why, in the aftermath of all of these, my plea to Filipinos everywhere who still entertain, somehow, some degree of concern for the nation is: we should now aspire to learn to rely more on our God and Savior whose Name is Jesus, by forcing ourselves to remember in our minds and instill in our hearts His commands in His Bible, and by obeying each one of these commands.

If we will only read and meditate on the Word of God, and strive to carry out our day-to-day affairs in accordance with His commands, we will not fail to realize that the debilitating division in the country today, and the gripping and crippling poverty and rebuke of many among us, actually constitute curses from God which He has rained down upon us because we have turned our backs on Him.

We will also surely understand that Sereno’s ouster, like the much earlier ouster of former President Marcos, of former President Estrada, and of former Chief Justice Renato Corona, have caused, and will continue to cause, God’s curses to come to us as a nation.

Of course, I am not saying that the ousters we refer to here were right, or were wrong. No, I am not making any judgment at all. What I am merely saying is that, based on the Bible, it is warned that a people who have no desire to know and obey the Word of God, the Bible, are bound to undergo difficulties and sufferings, and many other curses from God.

In the Bible, for example, many of its verses contain one overriding command: the citizenry should not fight against, but should subject themselves to, their leaders, because the Bible considers leaders as having been instituted and therefore are under the protection of God.

Then, side-by-side with the command not to fight against a country’s leaders is the command to instead pray for those leaders, and ask that God will be the One to deal with any of their wrongdoings. And that is the truly acceptable way of behaving towards leaders from the point of view of the Bible. Instead of directly acting against their leaders, the people should strengthen their faith in God, and be strong in their belief that it is God who will level all things up.

At this point, therefore, I am making a call for those who are still fiercely believe in the power of prayer, to start a movement of Filipinos who are reading and studying and obeying the Word of God, the Bible. I am of the conviction that, if God will see our sincerity in this endeavor of knowing and obeying His Word, He will somehow agree to shower us with his guidance, blessings, and protection here in the Philippines.

***

Filipinos, really, have become a thoroughly malicious nation. Once they fixed in their mind that something is wrong with another or with someting, and they were led to criticize the supposed wrong, no more subsequent manifestation of good faith on the part of the people who are said to have been involved in the alleged wrongdoing will ever be acceptable to them.

The example of the scandal that currently embroils both the Department of Tourism (DOT) and Bitag Media Production Unit Inc. shows this. When news of this problem was publicized by the Commission on Audit (COA), almost all the critics of Ben and Erwin Tulfo of Bitag, and of their sibling, now resigned DOT Secretary Wanda Tulfo Teo, uniformly ganged up on them, crying that the Tulfos should return the amount involved in the scandal, which is P60 million.

On May 7, 2018, after a family council meeting, the lawyer of Teo announced to the media that Bitag would return the whole of the P60 million, up to the last centavo. They decided to do this, it would appear, not because they were admitting that the transaction involving all of them was illegal, but to show that money was not the only consideration of the Tulfos in the transaction in question.

How did their critics respond to this show of utmost good faith? They again chanted, in unison, that the return by the Tulfos of the P60 million is no longer important; that the Ombudsman should continue investigating them; and that Teo should resign just the same from her post at DOT. Well, well, well! Evidently, among many Filipinos, good faith–or the good intention of a person– is no longer of any value.

The rule of thumb among right thinking Filipinos had always been, and, of course, should always be that, once a person who is being accused by his critics of wrongdoing is able to show good faith in his transactions, similar to what the Tulfos had done in their decision to return the contested P60 million even if no legal proceeding has taken place yet, criticisms and character assassination should already cease.

The problem with many Filipinos, however, is this: good faith is no longer important nor relevant to them. The only important thing for them is for them to able to criticize, and, as in the case of the Tulfos who are proven to be very close with President Duterte, to criticize likewise their political patrons. The motive behind their criticisms is no longer the good of the many, but simply the destruction of their enemies.

Be that as it may, from where I sit, principally because of this predisposition to simply criticize now gripping many Filipinos, the Tulfos should not have decided right away to return any money their company received on the basis of their contract with PTV 4. First, their contract with the government media station is legal and legitimate, and remains to be valid and binding, even now.

Second, even while there is already some fury stirred by the COA findings, they remain nothing but, yes, “furious disclosures”.

COA has not proven anything yet at the moment. If we look into COA’s past history, it has similarly flagged down many other government contracts and officials, yet the ultimate decision on what to do with the transactions being complained of by COA remains dependent on legal and judicial processes where everyone is given the right to due process first.

If Ben and Erwin found time to ask me, I would have told them to avoid rush or rash decision, and just wait for the appropriate orders from the appropriate courts, before agreeing or deciding to return anything, if ever returning money would be one of the options. The truth is that, both DOT and PTV4 already benefitted from the media programs where they are the hosts, precisely because they have discharged their contractual obligations with PTV 4.

 

E-mail: batasmauricio@yahoo.com

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