Responsive governance

IT was wonderful to talk about responsive governance to a group of concerned citizens who are organizing themselves into some kind of multi-sectoral watchdog. This is a good and most welcome development. My earnest prayer is for the initiative to take wing and really fly high in their objectives.

With our world getting complicated, we truly need more participation from everyone in seeing to it that all aspects and levels of our society, be it in government, business or the private sector, run properly as they should be.

Such participation can facilitate the monitoring of events and developments in the different areas of our society, the voicing out of concerns and issues that need to be attended to especially by our public officials, and the animating and revitalizing of the whole society in general.

We cannot deny that there are big problems around, not to mention the challenges that normally go with the flow of time and development. And in a sense these are all but understandable given our human condition. But obviously, we have to do something about them, and not just let them be.

Since our ideas of what is good for us can be varied and sometimes conflicting, it is important that everyone tries his best to ground himself as firmly as possible on his relationship with God. After all, God is the source, foundation and end of our life. He is also our true light, the energy and our ultimate salvation.

Thus, I made it clear to the audience that they have to go beyond their good intentions that may be formed from a certain sense of civic duty, or from some ideological or political thought. These, of course, are necessary, but they would be hanging in the air if not based on God.

We have to dissipate the widespread bias, inspired by the Enlightenment mentality that reason alone without faith, man alone without God, could lead to us to truth, justice, development and prosperity. This is a myth needing to be burst.

In this RH bill brouhaha, this bias and myth are playing their best part, and unfortunately captivating many people. It’s a bias that systematically excludes God and morality in the deliberation of its merits. It just gets contented with practicality, convenience and whatever reason unaided by faith can come out.

And so we need to be clear about our position toward faith and the Church in general. If by trying to have an “informed choice” or a so-called more complete approach and more rational and realistic understanding of an issue, we remove faith and religion from the considerations, then we have a big problem.

For our concerned citizens to be effective in their desire to promote a culture of responsive governance in our public offices, they need to be grounded on God, otherwise we would just be embarking on an adventure to nowhere.

If one does not have faith, then he should lay the cards on the table from the start, and we will take it from there. Those with faith should not be afraid nor ashamed nor inhibited to also show their faith foundations. And let the discussion and dialogue begin. The meeting ground is, of course, reason, but faith always uses reason.

It is hoped that the many advocacy groups that are trying to cultivate this culture of responsive governance be guided by respect for one another in spite of sharp differences and conflicts of opinions and views. They should try always to be positive and constructive in their efforts, not simply concentrating on fault-finding.

They have to find ways of monitoring developments, good and bad, in our society, and create channels of continuing dialogue with those in government, Church and everyone else. The appropriate structures and mechanisms should be developed and put in place.

Extreme prudence, the prudence of the spirit and not of the flesh and of the world should be practiced. This will require a lot of study, hearing all the parties concerned in a given issue, as well as consultations, planning out the best strategies that meet the demands of truth, justice and charity.

By all means, bitter zeal, that over-eagerness to work for justice and truth but violating the requirements of charity, should be avoided.

We also have to be wary of the many traps and tricks of political and ideological partisanship. We have to see to it that we maintain the required independence needed to be truly objective and fair in our efforts. Let’s look closely at whatever strings attached some supporters may put as conditions.