Below is an interesting article by Mr. A.C. Abaya. It is about our perceptions and how it determines our decisions.
Read Below:
‘Most Corrupt President’
By Antonio C. Abaya
Written on Dec. 19, 2007
For Standard Today,
December 20 issue
Of course, it was and is “only” a perception.
But because no one can possibly know all the “objective” facts about anyone or anything, we all make decisions and choices based on our perceptions.
When we buy a new car or choose a lot for our new home, we are making choices based on our perceptions, that this or that brand and model is most suitable to our station in life and our budget, and that this or that neighborhood is the best we can afford to raise a family in.
We probably do not know all the facts about the technical flaws of this or that car, and we probably do not know all the unsavory things that have occurred in this or that neighborhood. Or even if we did, we still make the decision to choose and buy, because our perception is that the pluses outweigh the minuses.
So also with public opinion surveys and free and open elections. We do not know everything about the subject being surveyed on, and we do not know everything about the politicians who are soliciting our votes. But we give our answers to the questionnaires, and we cast our ballots in favor of this or that candidate…..based largely or entirely on our perceptions of the subject and the candidates.
Perception is everything. So when President Arroyo and her apologists in media dismiss the Pulse Asia survey that ranked her the “most corrupt President” of this country in the last 35 years as “not being in tune with reality” – or words to that effect – she is not defining what that reality is. She is merely expressing her perception of the perceptions of her own people about her.
Reality is elusive and unknowable. Even in physics there is such a thing as the Principle of Uncertainty, articulated by the German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg in the 1930s, based on the realization that what was then considered the most elemental event in the universe – the orbit of an electron around the nucleus of an atom - cannot be directly observed and therefore cannot be known with absolute certainty. It can only be mathematically perceived and inferred from related phenomena.
If the Pulse Asia survey had ranked her as “the least corrupt President” in the past 35 years, she would have been beaming from ear to ear and her apologists in media would have been singing hosannas about the unsullied objectivity of Pulse Asia.
But the Pulse Asia survey in question was apparently commissioned by former senator Serge Osmena of the Opposition who had paid a supposed fee of P300,000 for it. Does that make the survey results unreliable and suspect? I personally have confidence in the professionalism of Pulse Asia and would accept the results at face value.
But those who don’t, have the option to pay for a similar survey, to be run by Pulse Asia or by another professional survey organization (such as the Social Weather Stations), and ask exactly the same questions. Would they come up with similar or dissimilar results?
The Pulse Asia survey was conducted between Oct 20 and 31. At that time, the newspaper headlines and the TV evening news were dominated by reports of bags full of cash handed out to congressmen and governors convened in Malacanang, by public calls for GMA’s resignation, by maneuvers to have her impeached, by continuing Senate hearings on the corruption-riddled ZTE broadband contract. It is only natural that public perceptions of her and her government were overwhelmingly negative.
If an administration-sponsored survey were conducted, by the same organization and asking the same questions, during a euphoric period when, say, vast deposits of oil are discovered in our territory, and all those with pending plunder cases with the Ombudsman are convicted, and the NPA and the Abu Sayyaf decide to lay down their arms, and the GDP climbs up to 9 percent, then public perceptions of GMA and her government would be more positive. But would this period of euphoria ever come to pass? Not very likely. .
But we are talking of the here and now, and President Arroyo must suffer the consequences of her own actions and decisions – or failures to act and decide - that have created the present (im)moral environment. She is being fried in her own fat.
To the question: In your opinion, which president is the MOST CORRUPT in the history of the Philippines?, Pulse Asia’s 1,200 respondents gave the following replies: Gloria Arroyo (42%), Ferdinand Marcos (35%), Joseph Estrada (16%), Fidel Ramos (5%), Cory Aquino (1%), No reply (2%).
To the question: In your opinion, under which administration has there been the most intense allegations of corruptions?, the replies were: Arroyo administration (45%), Marcos administration (31%), Estrada administration (14%), Ramos administration (7%), Aquino administration (1%), No Reply (1%).
To the question: In your opinion, which president is the LEAST CORRUPT OR NOT CORRUPT in the history of the Philippines? The replies were: Cory Aquino (66%), Joseph Estrada (11%), Ferdinand Marcos (9%), Fidel Ramos (6%), Gloria Arroyo (5%), No Reply (3%).
The replies to the first two questions more or less reinforce each other. But the answers to the third question conflict in parts with the results of the first two, and suggests that many of the respondents did not completely understand the question. How can Estrada be the second least corrupt when he is also perceived to be the third most corrupt? How can Ramos be ranked both fifth most corrupt and fifth least corrupt at the same time?
But there is no ambiguity about perceptions on who the “Most Corrupt President” is, and it is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. No matter how undisturbed and nonplussed she may try to project herself to be by this latest roasting, it must hurt, and it must hurt badly.
At the start of her presidency in 2001, she had told everyone who cared to listen that she had no ambitions to become “the best president,” only “a good one” and that the Good Lord would take care of the rest. Or words to that effect.
But as things have turned out, she may not even be perceived as “a good president” at all. For most people, it is difficult, even impossible, to reconcile “goodness” with “most corrupt.” Perhaps the Good Lord has a rationale beyond human comprehension for this moral conundrum. Didn’t she tell Pope Benedict that it was the Good Lord who placed her in her position?
Having “bested” Marcos and Estrada in the corruption sweepstakes, will she now be included in the Guinness Book of World Records’ list of the World’s Most Corrupt Leaders, and give the Philippines the singular distinction of being the only country in the world with three - no longer just two - presidents in this list?
But she has no one but herself to blame for this ignominious dishonor.
When Romulo Neri telephoned her that Benjamin Abalos had allegedly offered him a P200 million bribe to approve the ZTE broadband contract, she merely told him, according to Neri, not to accept the bribe but to approve the contract nonetheless. If she were a moral person, she would have fired Abalos for cause, sic-ed the Ombudsman on him and cancelled the contract right away. She cancelled the contract only months later, after public outrage forced her to. The public perception is that she (or a member of her family) was in on the corrupt contract and tried to get away with it.
Since March 2005, the Americans have tried to nudge her into accelerating the trial of Maj. Gen. Carlos F. Garcia for plunder. The Americans, after all, were the ones who arrested Garcia’s sons while they were trying to smuggle in $100,000 in cash at San Francisco International Airport, and the Americans have the documentary evidence on their US bank accounts and their real estate holdings: a condo unit in the Trump Tower in Manhattan and a house and lot in an Ohio town, all on his salary of P27,000 a month as AFP comptroller.
Yet, President Arroyo could not or would not do anything to expedite his trial. The public perception is that many other AFP officers and civilian DND officials – including those with whom she had conspired to topple Joseph Estrada from the presidency in the months before January 2001 – would be exposed as accomplices in Garcia’s scams, and would likely drag her down with them. Similar deliberate foot-dragging in the plunder charges against Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot and Col. George Rabusa can be explained by similar reasons. (See my articles in March/April 2005):
http://www.geocities.com/dapat_tapatt/plunderandgengarcia.html
http://www.geocities.com/dapat_tapatt/plunderandgenligot.html
http://www.geocities.com/dapat_tapatt/plunderandgenrabusa.html
And is there any other explanation in the deliberate efforts by her senior bureaucrats to prevent Virgilio Garcillano from being investigated by the Lower House, and Joc Joc Bolante by the Senate, than the obvious ones that she did not want them to spill the beans about the electoral fraud and the unauthorized use of P728 million in government funds in the May 2004 elections in which she was the principal beneficiary? (See my article/s of July 2005):
http://www.geocities.com/dapat_tapatt/garcisvanashing.html
And those bags full of cash mysteriously distributed to mayors, governors and congressmen and women during or after their meeting with her in Malacanang. Doesn’t she realize that the public does not believe the admissions lamely proffered by various individuals for various supposedly altruistic purposes? The public perception is that these monies were distributed to bribe the recipients a) to block the impeachment proceedings against her; and b) to support the forthcoming revival of charter change to allow her to remain in power beyond 2010, as prime minister.
I could go on. But the point has been established, I believe, that perceptions are just as compelling as reality, especially since she has tried – successfully, it must be said – to block reality from being dragged out into the sunlight. She has no one but herself to blame for being judged the Most Corrupt President of this country. *****
Reactions to tonyabaya@gmail.com. Other articles in www.tapatt.org and in acabaya.blogspot.com.
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