Bernardo M. Villegas

Manila Bulletin Business

November 19, 2024

Pope Francis’ Advice to Political Leaders (Part 3)

            In the 2024 Asian CEO Awards last October 8, the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in the Public Sector was given to current Finance Secretary Ralph Recto.  As Chairman of the Board of Judges, I was the one assigned to hand him the Award.  In my brief talk, I mentioned the fact that the Honorable Secretary just turned 60 early this year.   I pointed out to the audience that today 60 is the equivalent of 40 in the past, considering all the advances in medical science.  This means that we were awarding the Lifetime Achievement Award to someone who could still have another 20 years or more of life.  I asked rhetorically:  Isn’t the Award premature?

            The answer I gave concerned the present realities of those seeking election to high-level posts in Government, especially to the Senate.  We are witnessing once more the phenomenon of celebrities famous for their acting and other entertainment talents, sports heroes, media personalities and other famous filing their certificates of candidacy for the highest posts in the Legislature.  Since Secretary Recto spent most of his long career in public office in the Legislature, first in the House of Representatives and then for a record three terms in the Senate, I said that a  major  reason why the Board of Judges decided to give him the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Public Sector, despite his relative youth, was to hold him up as role model of someone who is eminently qualified to be in  the Senate.  Senators, to do their job responsibly, must be equipped with specialized knowledge especially in geopolitics, macroeconomics, and the workings of a market economy.   They must be steeped in understanding of monetary, fiscal and trade issues if they are to pass intelligent laws. The relationships between interest rates by the Central Bank and inflation; the danger limits to the debt-to-GDP ratio and deficit-to-GDP ratio; the desired level of FDIs; and many other macroeconomic and microeconomic realities must be old hat to them and not only to their respective technical staffs. In his years of public office, Secretary Recto has manifested a high degree of economic and financial literacy that many of the aspiring Senatoriables clearly do not possess.  By awarding him the Lifetime Achievement honor in the Asia CEO Awards, we wanted to deliver a message to Filipino voters in time for the May 2024 elections.

            It is not too much to ask that at least for the twenty four Senators,  Ralph Recto (like his grandfather Claro M. Recto and others like former Senatorial greats Jovito Salonga,  Jose Diokno, Lorenzo Tanada, Ambrosio Padilla, and Frank Drilon) should be presented as the role models that Filipino voters should consider in deciding whom to vote for among the  candidates for Senator  in the May 2024 elections.  I have no problem with very young, inexperienced, unknowledgeable personalities running for positions in the Lower House of Congress.  As long as there is a core group among them who have the same level of general knowledge and maturity as the Senators, we can tolerate the presence of Congress men and women who are parochial and narrow in their views.  They can worry about less consequential issues facing Philippine society such as names to give to streets in their localities, number of public holidays, the school calendar, kilometers of roads to construct in their respective districts, etc.   Those of them who can rise above such parochial and limited interests and develop a more global view of things can then try to run for a position in the Upper Chamber.

            At the moral level, however, it is important that we demand of each candidate for any public office the virtue of justice, the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor.  In a recent general audience, Pope Francis spoke about the need for “righteous men and women.”  How does the Pope describe the “righteous person”?  Let me quote from that audience he held last Easter:  “The righteous person reveres laws and respects them, knowing that they constitute a barrier protecting the defenseless from the tyranny of the powerful.  The righteous person does not think only of his own individual wellbeing but desires the good of society as a whole.  Therefore, he does not give in to the temptation to think only of himself and of taking care of his own affairs, however legitimate they may be, as if they were the only thing that exists in the world.  The virtue of justice makes it clear—and places this need in the heart—that there can be no true good for oneself if there is not also the good of all.”

            No matter how quixotic it may sound, our moral leaders and educators should do everything possible in their hands to point out to their followers and mentees what are the characteristics they should look for in an aspirant to a public office:   “The righteous person keeps watch over his own behavior, so that it is not harmful to others:  if he makes a mistake, he apologizes.   In some situations, he goes so far as to sacrifice a personal good to make it available to the community.  He desires an orderly society, where people give luster to the office they hold, and not the office that gives luster to people.  He abhors recommendations and does not trade favors.  He loves responsibility and is exemplary in promoting legality.  Indeed, this is the way of justice, the antidote to corruption:  how important it is to educate people, especially the young, in the culture of legality!  It is the way to prevent the cancer of corruption and to eliminate criminality, removing the ground from beneath it.”

            As mentioned above, when we awarded Secretary of Finance Ralph Recto the Lifetime Achievement in the Public Sector Asian CEO Award, it was pointed out that the young technocrat still has a lifetime ahead of him.  Given today’s actuarial realities, he may easily live at least another 20 years, a whole new generation.  It is my wish that he will live long enough to see the future generations of Filipino voters taking to heart the final advice of Pope Francis:  “The righteous person shuns harmful behavior such as slander, perjury, fraud, usury, mockery, and dishonesty.   The righteous person keeps his word, returns what he has borrowed, pays fair wages to all laborers:  a man who does not pay fair wages to workers is not just,  he is unjust; he is careful not to pass judgments on his neighbor, and defends the reputation and good name of others…The righteous are not moralists who don the robe of the censor, but upright people who ‘hunger and thirst for righteousness’, dreamers who yearn in their hearts for universal brotherhood.  And, today especially, we are all in great need of this dream.  We need righteous men and women, and this will make us happy.”  For comments, my email address is bernardo.villegas@uap.asia’