Reform Starts With Correcting The Past

People’s Defender
By Atty. Alexander “Aleckoy” Lim
The Bohol Standard

“The changes we make today can create a better tomorrow,” says a commercial ad on CNN. And this is the same thing that is taking place in our country today.

The reform that Pres. Noynoy Aquino has been relentlessly working on is necessary in order to create a better future for the Filipino people whom he considers as his “boss.”

One essential ingredient of reform is of course the prosecution of offenders, the very officials of government who had plunged this country into the deeper mire of misery.

I see nothing personal in Pres. Noynoy’s drive to punish those who had betrayed public trust and those who had robbed the Filipino people of a better future.

There are some critics who do not like the idea of Aquino pursuing Arroyo and her cohorts. They said the president should instead focus on the economy and halt his offensives.

I beg to disagree. The economy has been managed well by the President. In fact, for the first time in many years, unemployment rate of the country goes down. Investors’ confidence remains high. We cannot demand too much from P-noy. National progress cannot happen overnight.

While the economy is doing well, prosecuting Arroyo and her cohorts can proceed without any economic setback. Correcting an error is a totally separate endeavor from strengthening the economy.

If the current administration would allow Arroyo to live unpunished, it would set a bad precedent. It sends a discomforting message to our people that in this country it is all right to rob people’s money because in the future pardon awaits the criminals anyway.

We’ve been told that those who do not learn the mistake of the past are bound to repeat it. I dare say that those who are guilty of stealing public funds should not be left off the hook, otherwise it would embolden to those who are scheming to do the same public crime. If our society would allow all rapists to go free and unpunished, will there be a safe place for women to live in?

We cannot implement real and tangible reforms in this present age if we do not correct the past.

Correcting the past does not mean lamenting over what had been done. It does not mean changing the past, for the past can never be changed. It does not mean burying its memories in the sands of oblivion and pretend nothing had happened. But it means making people accountable for their own actions.

Let Arroyo have a happy-ever-after life, and all the rest of corrupt bureaucrats would draw inspiration from her story.

For me, putting Arroyo under a house arrest is perhaps one of the best Christmas gifts the Pnoy administration could give to the Filipino people.

Another great Christmas gift to our nation is the warrant of arrest on former Comelec Chair Benjamin Abalos. Abalos, along with the former president, has been charged of massive election sabotage.

This is the kind of reform we’ve been dreaming of – a reform from top to bottom, a reform that starts with correcting the sins of the past so that no one would be bound to repeat the same.

Indeed, the reform that Pres. Nonoy is undertaking today will create a better tomorrow for all of us.

And before we know it, our country would start to feel a big difference when it is governed by honest and sincere public officials, as modeled by Pres. Aquino.