Paradigm for the Happy Life
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Transcript of Paradigm for the Happy Life
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Paradigm for the Happy LifeMarch 31, 2014 at 2:43pm
This was Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago's speech at the West Visayas State University
Commencement Exercises in Iloilo City, 28 March 2014
In my approaching old age, I am now supposed to share with you what life has taught me, and in the
end to encapsulate for you what is the meaning of life. From where I am now, I find that these
conundrums are easily answered. First, life teaches us that, whether we perceive it as predestined
or as random, it is beyond any persons control. Second, there is no template for the meaning of life.
Instead, the meaning of life is what you choose to make it mean. In making your choice, when you
reach my age, your journey becomes an affirmation of the warning that life is a consequence of our
moral choices.
The Problem of Evil
As professionals in a small developing state, you will be living in an environment of poverty and
corruption. I will deal separately with poverty and with corruption. For me, these two features
constitute the problem of evil. For example, the P10 billion pork barrel scam is definitely a problem of
moral evil, as contrasted with supertyphoon Yolanda, which was a natural evil. We can see that
human evil can be defined as the suffering which results from morally wrong human choices,
specially when the moral wrong is of an extreme kind.[1] It is not difficult to identify the sources of
evil in our society. There are many sources, but I will deal with only two.
The first source of evil in Philippine society is self-interest. Every day, many people pursue their self-
interest at the expense of others. However, self-interest becomes a moral evil when selfish
politicians make our people suffer in hunger and poverty. Another major source of evil lies in a
failure in moral imagination. There are many psychopaths in Congress, but they are unable to
imagine the sufferings that they cause on millions of Filipinos who are poor. Let me give you one
example.
In the present pork barrel scandal, the most guilty are not only the senators and representatives, but
also the executive officers of the so-called implementing agencies, which could be a department, an
agency, or a local government unit. Under the Government Procurement Reform Act, the choice of
the NGO is subject to competitive bidding or through negotiated procurement. As we are beginning
to see in the publicly televised proceedings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, the problem
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arose because the senator or the congressman insisted to the head of the implementing agency that
the service or supply contract should be given to the legislators chosen supplier or contractor, from
whom the legislator got a kickback of as high as 50%.
The executive officers of many of these implementing agencies, such as the Technology Research
Center (TRC), National Agribusiness Corporation (NABCOR), and Muslim Youth Foundation appear
to be equally guilty of the crime of plunder or malversation committed by the lawmaker who exerted
pressure to give a contract to one specific supplier or contractor. Accordingly, I shall file a resolution
for the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to expand the scope of its present inquiry on the pork barrel
scam, so as to include executive officers of implementing agencies. These officers should be
required to explain the criteria that they applied, in choosing the corrupt NGOs that became the
ultimate beneficiaries of the pork barrel.
The implementing agency should never have allowed the corrupt politicians to exert pressure in
favor of NGOs. After all, NGOs are supposed to have their own funds from non-governmental
sources, such as international donors, international financing institutions, corporate donors, etc. At
present, there appears to be no government agency that monitors the flow of public funds to
hundreds of NGOs, legitimate or illegitimate. They could be political NGOs, quasi-NGOs
(QUANGOs), NGOs run by socialites, or NGOs run by wives of business tycoons.
It is the implementing agency who chose the corrupt NGOs. But these implementing agencies were
not even created by Congress. Instead, many are subsidiary corporations of existing departments orgovernment-owned corporations created by mere administrative orders or created through the SEC.
According to former budget secretary Benjamin Diokno, the proliferation of implementing agencies is
highly anomalous, because some of them receive more funds than the legitimately created agencies
of government.
We have to act. First, we need to establish the criminal liability of their past and present executives.
Then we should recover the misappropriated funds. And then we should throw into jail the liable
public officials. After we have accomplished these measures, it follows that the guilty implementingagencies involved in the pork barrel scandal should be abolished or reformed.
How were the NGOs able to capture either the Senate or the conference committee on the budget
drawn from the two chambers of Congress? The answer is not so simple. In the past, the COA
required government agencies to make a full liquidation of public funds prior to any future releases of
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their funding. But in last years budget, the requirement of full liquidation was reduced to merely
70%. Who inserted this corrupt provision? Was it the Senate finance committee, or was it the
bicameral conference committee on the budget? In any event, this provision was administratively
vetoed by President Aquino, leaving its implementation unclear. This question should be answered
by the DBM secretary.
The Problem of Poverty
I use the U.N. definition that poverty is present when the person lives below $1 a day. The U.N.
estimates that about 1.2 billion people in the world currently live in poverty, and one-half of those are
children. The poor people live generally in sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia. In 2000, 189
members of the U.N. adopted the Eight Millennium Development Goals designed to alleviate
poverty, and improve the quality of life within their borders.
During our time it now appears that globalization is a key factor in increasing poverty levels in
developing countries. If we do not give ourselves a reality check, industrialization will leave the
Philippines out of the global economy. Therefore, each Filipino with a conscience, particularly young
graduates with your entire lives before you, must resolve to help reduce poverty in the Philippines. I
emphasize to you, as an intelligent audience, that the likelihood of poverty is increased in our
country by our poor governance, ethnic conflict, corruption, degradation, and the absence of
effective social services.
You and I as individuals share with our government the responsibility for alleviating poverty. In the
exercise of your profession, try hard to participate in poverty alleviation programs. Support economic
safety nets, demand increased job and credit opportunities, and insist that government should
execute programs designed to improve the quality of life, education, and health care.[2]
If you are thinking of joining the brain drain, meaning the outflow of our professional people to higher
income countries, I would regret it very much. We all agree that the migrants and the countries thatthey join represent gains for our national economy. But what happens to the families left behind?
Here are key points I want you to toss around in your educated brain:
The Philippines has borne some of the costs of educating you. If you go abroad, our country will losethe tax revenues from your incomes.
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If you emigrate, and particularly when you are a teacher, you could be depriving younger Filipinos ofyour guidance and stimulus. Those who could become your assistants will no longer be able to do
so after you depart.
The brain drain poses the problem that people who move out of the country are mostly those whoare trained and skilled, leaving behind the unskilled and the semi-unskilled.
If you leave, your departure will impact internal income distribution, because professionals whoemigrate imply that they would stay if their salary differentials were raised. If our society gives them
higher salaries, they would reinforce the inegalitarian income distribution.
The brain drain is external, because Filipinos leave for abroad. But the brain drain is also internal,because the professionals prefer to practice in the cities and often disregard the needs of rural
areas. [3]
The Problem of Corruption
Corruption is a problem as old as planet Earth, and I am not even sure that when our planet dies
after four and a half million years, that corruption will die with it. Today we are aware that because
corruption appears to be endemic in our society, it is imperative that Philippine society should focus
on accountable government and honest political processes.
Let us begin by defining corruption as the abuse of public roles or resources for private benefit. It
appears to afflict Filipinos more, the higher they rank in our governmental system. Look at the
ongoing investigation into the alleged P10 billion pork barrel scam. It is said to be headed by
somebody who is no less than a former Senate president, including a number of senators, andto
nobodys surprise it includes dozens upon dozens of representatives.
Our corrupt politicians are pre-literate. Although corruption is a threat to core democratic values such
as representation and deliberation, the crooks in government do not even know that international
organizations have decided to eliminate corruption as an accessible overhead cost of doing
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business in a country. Such organizations include: The World Bank; the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development; and the Organization of American States.
As a graduate of political science, of law, and of theology, I am passionate in fighting corruption,
because corruption is the great evil of Philippine society today. Picture it as a black devil complete
with horns, tail, and cloven hooves, which inflicts the following on the poor Filipino people:
Harms economic growth
Discourages foreign investment
Increases bureaucratic delays
Diverts expenditures from social services towards large projects, such as construction, that offerlarge bribes
Weakens political competition
Preempts popular participation
Enables corrupt officials and/or wealthy clients to exploit both state and people.
The culture of corruption has made prisoners of our people, because of the following factors:
A weak civil society, most recently revealed to be permeated by such corrupt institutions as non-governmental organizations, or NGOs
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Impaired participation, competition, and institutions in politics and economy
Ethnic fragmentation
Poor tax collection
Underpaid civil service
Dependence upon outside investment
Dependence upon extractive industries such as oil or mining
No matter to what profession you belong, it is your civic duty to help stop corruption during your
lifetime. Sometime in the near future, we should be capable of designing a national integrity systemthat should be administered with the same brutality that is practiced by the identifiable crooks in
government.[4]
The Happy Life
If we as a united people are able to reduce poverty and corruption to manageable levels, then and
only then, would each one of you be able to access the happy life, as defined by the philosophers.After writing a series of textbooks on philosophy, allow me to summarize what I learned from the
classic philosophers.
The real definition of happiness is: Any action that promotes the good spirits and lightheartedness of
the general public. This action should promote not only your own individual happiness, but also the
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happiness of all concerned. The philosophers John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham wrote that
happiness is the ultimate aim of all human actions, and therefore happiness is the ultimate standard
to judge whether an action is right or wrong.
But even Mill conceded that happiness depends not only on the quantity, but also on the qualityof
pleasures. Since we are human, we cannot be happy with the mere accumulation of pleasurable
sensations. We are made happy not by the lower pleasures, but by the higher pleasures such as
the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments.[5]
It is wrong to think that happiness is a series of unrelated experiences. On the contrary, happiness is
an ordered whole characterizing an entire life. The road to happiness is the pursuit of specific goals
pursuant for their own sake such as knowledge, artistic and cultural activity, or moral goodness.Hence, when you pursue professional success, at the same time strive for these goals, so that your
life will be happy.
There are two concepts of happiness. The first concept is hedonistic; it identifies happiness with
pleasure. The second concept is eudaimonistic; it identifies happiness as the objective characteristic
of a persons life. This kind of happiness arises from the idea of fulfilment and the idea of self-
realization.
Let me leave you with the description of happiness or eudaimonia given by Aristotle, which is what I
wish for you above all. May you fulfill your distinctively human potential, by using both practical and
theoretical reason throughout your entire life. May you find happiness, meaning your well-being, in
the full realization of your human potential, specially in rational activity exhibiting excellence. May
you be proud Ilonggos.
Good luck!
ENDNOTES
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[1] R. S. Downie, Human Evil, inOxford Companion to Philosophy, 2nd ed. 273 (2005).
[2] Elizabeth Roletter Purdy, Poverty, in4 Encyclopedia of Political Science, 1327-29 (2011).
[3] Paul Streeten, Brain Drain, inOxford Companion to Politics of the World, 2nd ed. 83 (2007).
[4] Michael Johnston, Corruption, at id., 177-78.
[5] Richard Norman, Happiness, in supra, note 1 at 358-59.