The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) on Wednesday called on the public to exercise ‘discernment’ when voting for the country’s leaders as it condemned the ‘unbridled corruption’ and ‘moral bankruptcy’ of government officials.
In a statement, the PPCRV said that recent revelations of ‘unbridled and unmitigated corruption, profligate consumption, insensate greed, and moral bankruptcy by the government officials’ cause the group ‘disbelief and deep outrage.’
‘We are outraged that the taxes which we paid for with our blood, sweat and tears. have instead been pocketed by politicians, government employees and contractors who condemn fellow Filipinos to suffering and even death when they built substandard and ghost flood control structures,’ the PPCRV said. The group also slammed the country’s justice system, which seems to be ‘blind to the culpability of others and incapable or unwilling to reach to the very highest echelons of our social and political hierarchies.’
The ‘innate patience,’ ‘ingrained amiability’ and ‘Christian forgiveness of the Filipino people,’ the PPCRV said, were ‘being depended upon to whitewash, forget and forgive yet again.’
‘But for how long can we accept? How much more can we forgive? How many more acts of dishonesty and cheating can we turn a blind eye to?’ said the group. ‘Our faith demands action.’
‘We demand that the wheels of justice be quick, thorough, and blind to personalities and positions and power bases,’ the group said. ‘We demand accountability and the incarceration of those who are guilty, proving that no one is above the law.’ The PPCRV also demanded transparency from the government, saying that ‘shadow’ contracts and procedures must be stopped.
Instead, the group said government projects should be published publicly and monitored by citizens. Addressing the public, the PPCRV also called on fellow Filipinos to vote with discernment as it stressed how voting can allow unscrupulous individuals to be put in positions of power.
‘It is our all-important vote which places government leaders in the positions of power which they may wield correctly or as we have seen, powers which some have wielded for self-aggrandizement in lieu of service-orientation with predilection for the neediest in our society,’ the PPCRV said.