Erap's Verdict

Contemplating on Sandiganbayan’s verdict regarding Erap’s plunder case makes me want to alter my outlook on the governance of the Republic of the Philippines. Now that they’ve announced the verdict, in which Erap’s been found guilty in his wrong-doing and is sentenced to reclusion perpetua or 40 years life imprisonment, quite gives me a significant feeling towards the administration of our country.

We’ve all learned about the grounds that result to a presidential impeachment, which includes 1.) Culpable violation of the constitution; 2.) Treason; 3.) Bribery; 4.) Graft and Corruption; 5.) Betrayal of Public Trust; and 6.) Other high crimes e.g. plunder, and I presume that no public officer of a government has ever resisted committing these grounds, except that they are still unnoticed. On former President Erap’s case, I don’t know how it resulted into being discovered but people these days are smarter. Except for a tiny problem. The Philippines is considered as one of the countries to be exercising a reactionary type of democratic governance, meaning it is marked by a favoring reaction, esp. extreme conservatism or rightism in politics; opposing political or social change. Apart from this definition, I have my own way of defining this word “reactionary”. From its root word, “reaction”, which means a reverse movement or tendency, it clearly describes how the Philippines is being governed nowadays. Filipinos are fond of resolving things just right after a damage has been done. Why can’t we just think in a futuristic kind of way by figuring out results that would come out from a particular decision? That is what’s making Filipinos dumb. They can’t vote right. They’ve already seen the evidences that make a presidential candidate worthy for a vote, but still they end up choosing the wrong one. Now, I’m pitying Erap because, let’s face it, it is in fact the people’s fault that he’ll be suffering from a reclusion perpetua judgment because it is us who put him in his position and it is us who made him do unlawful things in the first place. There’s nothing really wrong about the first definition of the word reactionary, because it is acceptable for us Filipinos to be preserving a bit of our being conservative, but my own definition clearly makes sense. I just wish that in the next presidential election, people would vote for a more worthy person to be leading this country of ours. I exempt our being humans and that humans make mistakes, but I hope people will learn from their former mistakes. I personally know a lot of people who repeat their mistakes over and over again, but oh please, that’s already an act of being dumb. Let’s not be dumb, act dumb, and think dumb, shall we? Oh, did I mention people being smart earlier? Never mind.

I mentioned earlier that I have this positive outlook towards our government. The reason behind this is because of this verdict, I presume that public officials have already learned to keep their noses off of the government’s money and start on circumspecting their actions more eminently. They’re now better off avoiding committing crimes discreetly before the people and just paying attention on managing their governmental offices thinking what would best benefit the country and the people they are serving.

I agree, this event has been monumental in our history because for the very first time, a former president is be sentenced to a 40-year imprisonment. This is a big leap for the nation not just because it has shown how serious the government is in the fight against corruption, but it has also shown how it renders justice.