TWO of the most common expressions that I hear from the tricycle drivers in our neighborhood in Parañaque are: “Lumilipas din ang kahihiyan!” (Shame passes!) and, “Nakakain ba ang dangal?” (Can you eat honor?).
These expressions reflect a very cynical attitude that is probably understandable if one were to consider the harsh lives that the drivers have to contend with — lives that they characterize as “Isang kahit, isang tuka!” (Literally: like a chicken scratching the ground and pecking at whatever food it finds).
Unfortunately, this attitude seems to be common among people who are well-to-do, especially those who are in positions of power; folks who ought to be role models of honor and integrity.
It makes you wonder if they care about how their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will feel about being told that their forebears were hustlers, liars or thieves. Or are they resigned to the fact that their descendants and successors will be as cynical or as unscrupulous as they?
Or, maybe, they think that people will forget. Lilipas din ang kahihiyan.
Recently, local and international media gave us a generous serving of news about two very prominent individuals who lost their high positions in government because they were careless with their honor and integrity: in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Perfecto Yasay, Jr., and in the United States, President Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn (U.S. Army, Lt. Gen., retired).
Much can also be said about Duterte and Trump in terms of dealing with “alternative facts,” but that is a topic that we have already written about in the past.
The falls of Yasay and Flynn are ironic because they both had relatively honorable and impressive careers and they could have exited public service with their families flushed with well-deserved pride.
Sadly, both were exposed as having lied or played loosely with the truth and both had to suffer the consequences. Yasay was rejected by the Commission on Appointments and has had to vacate his post as the Philippines’ top diplomat. Duterte, famous for standing by his people, right or wrong, could do nothing. Flynn was asked to resign by Trump, serving only 24 days in his highly sensitive job.
Unfortunately for Yasay and Flynn, the saying “lumilipas din ang kahihiyan” may no longer apply in this digital age, where things printed or posted about a person can be unearthed and accessed through many generations.
In other words, if one’s great grandchild were to Google the background of Yasay or Flynn, for purposes of a school report on the family’s proud ancestry, the poor kid would be disheartened and embarrassed by what the digital postings will reveal.
To give an example of what one can find out about a prominent individual through a digital search, the following was written on March 10, 2000 by the late Philippine Star columnist and former Press Secretary (under Pres. Cory Aquino), Teodoro “Teddy Man” Benigno. This was in connection with the celebrated BW Resources stock market scandal that triggered the impeachment of President Joseph “Erap” Estrada:
“On the surface, it looks like a simple, even superficial personality feud between the president and Securities and Exchange commissioner Perfecto Yasay, Jr. The president wants his way with the SEC and since several weeks back has reportedly phoned Yasay five times to do him, Erap, a favor…Well, Yasay didn’t get the message, and — horror of horrors — denied to carry out the president’s ‘instructions…’
“But regardless of what happens to Mr. Perfecto Yasay (suspension, boot-out, sabotage charges), there’s no way they can sweep up the PSE and BW Resources debris and log them down river. Know what? Things are beginning to look like the start-up of a Philippine version of Watergate, threatening to bring down Erap and all the president’s men. They can call Yasay anything they want but the SEC chairman is the smoking gun or has the smoking gun.
“Mr. Yasay did what no one in the present administration has ever done — stare the president eyeball to eyeball. He blew the whistle on the president….”
And here’s what Wikipedia says about Yasay’s courageous act: “Yasay was among those who testified in the impeachment trial against President Joseph Estrada on charges of corruption. The probe led to the ouster of Estrada, known as EDSA People Power II in 2001.”
Yasay was so lionized in the wake of Estrada’s impeachment and subsequent ejection from the presidency that the former SEC chairman was considered fit for higher office. Yasay ran for senator in the 2001 elections and for vice-president in 2010. He lost in both polls, but one cannot belittle the high regard that his party mates had for him.
Yasay could have chosen to ride into the sunset, enjoying his glory, but he preferred, instead, to accept the position of secretary of foreign affairs. In the process, he opted to lie under oath on the matter of his former U.S. citizenship.
He could simply have told the truth: Yes, I was a U.S. citizen but I renounced that citizenship before my appointment as secretary of foreign affairs. But Yasay chose to lie and by lying, other questionable acts were also unearthed.
Did he accept the chairmanship of the Securities and Exchange Commission and did he run for public office even while he was a U.S. citizen? Worse yet, did he fail to recover his Philippine citizenship before he accepted the appointment to the Department of Foreign Affairs? If not, does that make him stateless?
The former National Security Adviser of Trump found himself in the same sticky situation as Yasay. He had served in the U.S. army intelligence service for years, moving up in rank to Lieutenant General, and serving as commander of the Joint Functional Component Command for Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, chairman of the Military Intelligence Board, Assistant Director of National Intelligence and Senior Intelligence Officer for the Joint Operations Command.
He had problems with managerial competence and had a tendency to play loosely with facts (behind his back, subordinates derisively described them as Flynn Facts), but he was, otherwise, a highly-regarded military man. And after his retirement, he became one of Trump’s closest confidants and a dependable aide during the presidential campaign.
But Flynn was caught telling a lie — to Vice President Mike Pence, no less — and he compounded his lies with other lies. He denied having spoken to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kisiyak in December 2016, but was forced to take back his denial after U.S. intelligence officials showed him evidence that he had, in fact, had a discussion with Kisiyak.
Flynn’s consultancy firm also had the government of Turkey as a client, making him a “foreign agent,” but he did not officially register that fact — a requirement of U.S. law — even while he had accepted his appointment as National Security Adviser (he only complied with the law, after he had been fired).
Questions remain unanswered about the relations of the camp of Trump with the Russians. Flynn’s firing may only be the tip of what the Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein feels is a cover-up. Bernstein is familiar with White House cover-ups. He and fellow Post reporter Bob Woodward exposed the Watergate scandal that forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The difference between Michael Flynn and Perfect Yasay, Jr. is this: Flynn may not end up like the old soldier who just fades away, but like the old fisherman who “just stinks that way.” That is the cruel fate of American public figures who are disgraced.
But not so in the Philippines. Yasay can still recover and pursue his public service or political career. Because in our town, kung ang kahihiyan hindi man lumipas (if shame doesn’t pass), folks tend to be immune to it, anyway — and maybe, the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, too.
Indeed, maybe, honor and integrity no longer count. ([email protected])
