Chapter 024: Virtue of Public Servants

PA 209: Ethics and Accountability in the Public Service

Prof. Lizan Perante – Calima

Friday 5:30 - 8:00, Room 301

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY:

                Focusing on your experiences and exposures to the Philippine bureaucracy, what do you think are the most important virtues that the government employees must possess?

To set my own context on this essay, let me first narrate my own exposures and experiences on the Philippine bureaucracy.

To start with, I came from the private sector. All my life, I never been an employee of the government.  My nearest experience of being a government employee was when Mayor Marides Fernando of Marikina tapped me as her consultant until her last term in the office.  She is not anymore eligible to run for another term because of the constitutional prohibition for a third termer to run for another term. My exposures and experiences therefore on the Philippine Bureaucracy is more of an outsider looking in.

But despite the fact that I have never been a government employee ever since, I am always active in local and national politics. I was the secretary of the Liberal Party of Marikina when I was young. Later on, I was appointed by then Vice – President Erap Estrada as the Municipal Chairman of his own political party, the Partido ng Masang Pilipino, in Marikina. During the 1992 elections, at the age of 31, I was nominated by my party to be the official mayoralty candidate of my hometown Marikina. We have a complete slate, we did all that has to be done during the campaign, but we lost over the team of Bayani Fernando. I went on as the NCR Chairman of the PMP Chairmen’s Forum campaigning for presidential candidate VP Erap Estrada. We won the elections, but the position given to me was a directorship of a private investment company. Eventually, when corruptions became rampant in Erap’s camp, I resigned and distanced from the group. Later, I found a clean candidate, Sen. Raul Roco and I became the NCR Campaign Manager for Aksyon Democratiko, Roco’s party.  We lost that election.

During the last elections, I was again nominated by a local party, Puersa Marikina, to be its official congressional candidate for the first district of Marikina. I have been preparing for the candidacy until former MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando, decided to file his candidacy for the 1st congressional district of Marikina, so, I decided to give way to him. During the campaign period, PDP Laban President and now the Senate President Koko Pimentel, who is also from Marikina, asked for my resume for a probable stint in the Duterte Administration if we win.  I was one of the 60 names submitted by the party for the possible appointment.  However, until now, I have no news about it and the process seem to be slow. We observed that the non – party members that are close to President Duterte are the one calling the shots and not the PDP – Laban. Sen. Pimentel is worried about this. He actually suggested that I visit President Duterte in Davao, but I did not do it because I want to give the search committee enough elbow room to really find the most qualified people in all posts. I know my chance of being finally appointed became more remote with that principled stand, but, so be it: sanay naman ako sa private sector eh. And besides, my salary as FEU Professor is higher than most officers in the government and with a four - day work a week. (This could be a form of rationalization of a man that never gets to be appointed, but come to think of it, I might be really better off remaining in the private sector.)

As to the question of what I think are the most important virtues that the government employees must possess,  my answer  would be influenced  by the fact that I am an outsider looking into the operations and dynamics in the government bureaucracy.  We from the private sector are looking for good services, so, for me, honesty, efficiency and genuine love for the people they serve are the best virtues that our public servants must have.

Honesty is a virtue will make the government employees avoid graft and corruption. At the same time, it will enable them to make principled stand and judgement given a situation. The truth will set them free, so an honest employee will be free from any burden caused by lying. This feeling of being free will be a factor in our quest for transparency and accountability in government.

Efficient government employees will deliver more result given some limited resources.  Wastage of resources and time are avoided by efficient employees and therefore the government gets to achieve more, serve more constituents, for less.  The result is that saved resources can be channelled into the pro poor activities that will help the less fortunate to have better education and food on the table.

The genuine love for the people they serve, their customers, is the fire in the belly that induces the government employees to serve better. It is the feeling of enjoyment of serving other people that should intrinsically motivate government employees to work harder and better. If the government employees genuinely love to serve their customers, the people, what they do is not work but sheer pleasure, a pursuit of a vocation. With this, their relationship and attitude towards their customers will be patient, accommodating and creative in responding to their needs, despite of their low salary of these government employees.

Give our country a bunch of public servants who are honest, efficient and have genuine love for people and this nation will be great again.

Submitted by:

SOFRONIO C. DULAY

DPA STUDENT, NCPAG

February 2, 2017