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MANY years ago, there was a series of television ads
ran by the Development Bank of the Philippines (as best as I can
recall it was the DBP that ran it) whose theme was positive Filipino
values.
One such ad featured a Filipino
government official or employee and his family eating at a
restaurant. At another table were a group of businessmen/contractors
who told the waiter they would foot the bill of the public
servant’s dinner. The official, when told by the waiter, refused
the offer and insisted on paying. I don’t remember the tag line of
that ad anymore, but I do remember its theme—delicadeza.
I don’t know if it’s a
correct translation, but delicadeza, the way I see it, is a sense of
shame, a sense of what is proper and improper. It is having the
sensitivity to avoid any appearance of impropriety; that even if
you’re really not doing anything wrong, if it appears to be wrong,
one should not do it.
The Japanese have a heightened
sense of delicadeza although, of course, they call it differently.
When it comes to delicadeza, the Japanese put the world to shame.
How many times have we seen a government official or business leader
in Japan resign from his post to take responsibility for a debacle,
to redeem his honor and the honor of his company or government
institution? A lot of Japanese even seek redemption from wrongdoing
by committing suicide or hara-kiri.
We in the Philippines are not so
lucky. Here you find shameless government officials defending
themselves to death, even pouring their loot on equally shameless PR
people or spin doctors to help them clean up their mess. What we
lack for Japanese-style delicadeza, we more than make up for with
good old Filipino kapal ng mukha.
The latest case in point is
Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. and his
participation (or nonparticipation) in the infamous broadband deal
between the government and ZTE Corp. Abalos maintains he had no
participation in the deal at all. He acknowledged knowing the ZTE
officials whom he said had become his golfing buddies at the highly
exclusive Wack-Wack Golf and Country Club. He admitted certain ZTE
officials have become part of his extended family, that one ZTE
official is even the kumare of his daughter who helps the latter
source products from China for her business here. He admitted going
on a golfing trip hosted by ZTE officials in Shenzen, China, but he
said he also returns the favor by playing host to the ZTE officials
when they are in the country. Abalos denied any knowledge about the
broadband deal but admitted introducing the ZTE officials to
government officials to help them with their proposal for a special
economic zone in Mindanao.
Look, nobody is stupid enough to
believe that Abalos knew nothing of any broadband deal. It’s
hard to imagine the ZTE officials, as close to Abalos as they are,
being part of his extended family, being his golf buddies, could not
have mentioned they were party to a $330-million deal with the
government, especially since a Cabinet official, Finance Secretary
Gary Teves went on record to say he met with Transportation and
Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza and Abalos when the two
were discussing the broadband contract (Teves said though he was
merely listening as the other two officials were discussing it).
But let’s just say the good
chairman Abalos is telling the truth. Does he not see anything wrong
with the fact that he traveled to China and played golf in Shenzen
with his ZTE golf buddies at the height of poll preparations for the
midterm elections? Does he not see anything wrong with Chinese
businessmen—businessmen who have every intention of doing
multimillion businesses with the government—subsiding his Shenzen
holiday if not taking care of it altogether? Does he not see
anything wrong with hosting these businessmen’s golf trips here?
(I mean, how much does a Comelec chairman get anyway?) And as
Comelec chairman, does he really have any business introducing these
Chinese businessmen to other government officials to talk about
possible joint ventures with the Philippine government, even if
it’s not the broadband deal?
What really gets me is that
Abalos doesn’t see anything wrong with these things at all. In the
same way that he didn’t see anything wrong talking to the Zubiri
family in Shangri-La Hotel, Makati, during the height of the
Maguindanao vote controversy, when Juan Miguel Zubiri and Koko
Pimentel were duking it out for the 12th and last spot in the
senatorial election.
Last year, South Korea’s Prime
Minister Lee Hae Chan resigned when he was criticized for playing a
round of golf on a national holiday (March 1), the same day railway
workers went on strike. Lee resigned and apologized, saying he was
very sorry for acting indiscreetly.
That’s delicadeza for you.
It’s a class act Abalos should follow, considering what he did is
far more serious compared to Lee’s indiscretion.
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