Anyone Elected from Public Office is Obliged to Live

The issue of the importance of integrity over technocratic association has always been an issue for habitual ordaineds. In many democratic and democratizing populations, debates ask ensued as to whether appointeds ought to live mor entirelyy exemplary lives. The reasons for challenging the Confucian apothegm on the benevolence of the customary official have been diverse, though it could be intuited that some sort of private interest is at s get under ones skin. In this paper, it shall be argued that all public officials should undoubtedly live moralisticly exemplary lives.Before anything else, it is rattling important that the term morally exemplary be defined. At least in this paper, morally exemplary shall be equated to the character or character of being able to live up to public service morality. e very(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal)day service morality refers to the set of values that a public official must h grey in order to effect the ends for which the regimen has been instituted (de Leon 434). As such, public service morality includes just now is not limited to a high degree of responsibility, integrity, loyalty, efficiency, patriotism, modesty, and justice (de Leon 434).To be able to argue that all public officials should live morally exemplary lives, it shall be argued that this claim is around reasonable in a democratic society. Afterwards, concrete examples of national experiences shall be provided to be able to show not only the reasonableness but overly the historical validity of this claim. Specifically, the experiences of the United States and of the Filipinos (a former U.S. colony) shall be utilize to concretize the claim. We shall begin with the reasonableness of the claim that public officials ought to live morally exemplary lives.In any democratic society, the morality of a public official is always an important element. A public office is defined as the right, authority, and duty created and conferred by law by which, for a given fulfilmentan individual is invested with some portion of the sovereign powers of the government to be exercised by him/her for the benefit of the public (de Leon 432). As such, precisely because of the hard power and function of public office on which depends the interests of the public, a public official ought to off his/her role as nothing less than sacred and that the violation hence would be nothing less than a sacrilege (Philippine 1971 Constitutional conference in de Leon 433).Common sense would tell us that the functions and the responsibilities of public official, being equated to the very sovereign powers of the government with the purpose of putting into effect the very ends for which government has been instituted, demand an impeccable character. Hence, it could safely be tell that the success or failure of a democracy or the democratization process of a solid ground partly depends on the morality (or neglect of it) of the persons who hold posi tions of trust. As such, a public official should undoubtedly live a morally exemplary life.History provides us with a number of examples to show the moral exemplariness of the lives of public officials mattered in the lives of nations. Actually, that turpitude and moral degeneration could in fact give way an empire is a lesson we have learned from the fall of the Roman conglomerate in 476 AD. It is common knowledge that in the last few centuries of the empire, the old Roman virtues started to degenerate in the Roman army. Emperors also stopped sentiment of the interests of the people and plainly thought of supporting the army and maintaining a curvaceous court (Perry 120). This, plus some other factors, led to the citizens lost of self-confidence and loyalty in the empire (Perry 123) which made it more vulnerable to groundless invasions, and at last collapse in 476 AD. Nevertheless, this powerful lesson in history could easily be given less importance by modernists so we ask to turn to contemporary examples.That a democratic nation could actually be threatened by lack of public service morality in its officials is take up demonstrated by the Watergate scandal. It should be recalled that the Watergate scandal involved a number of high ranking executive officials and President Richard Nixon himself. This scandal in conclusion led to the resignation of President Nixon, along with an undying infamy. It would be best to recount this scandal at this point.In 1972, a group of people bust in and wire tapped the Democratic Partys campaign headquarter in the Watergate apartment in Washington, D.C. The burglary and wiretapping eventually convicted five men who were also connected to the presidents re-election committee (Perry 828). Further investigations by the Senate eventually led to the findings that top presidential aides planned the burglary and concealed examine about it (Perry 828).These top ranking executive officers were U.S. Attorney General r ear Mitchell, White House Counsel John Dean, White House hirer of Staff H.R. Haldeman, and White House Special Assistant on domestic help Affairs Ehrlichman (Encarta Watergate). Eventually, more illegal activities were found by the Senate Committee. These plus the pilot burner burglary and wiretapping crushed on the president himself which led to his resignation in august 9, 1974.What could be learned from the Watergate scandal? It is simply the fact that the lack of moral exemplariness of public officials bothers the citizens of a truly democratic country. Moreover, it also threatens the democratic musical arrangement that works on public trust. It is this very threat that the constitutional system of rules of checks and balances protect a democratic nation against.If the United States provides a very wide-cut example of how a democratic nation reacts and defends itself against the lack of public service morality, the Philippines will be a good example of how a nation is con tinuously negatively affected by the persistent lack of moral exemplariness of its elected public officials.Up to the present, the Philippines, albeit its high literacy rate of 99% (Encarta, Philippines) and relatively good economic fundamentals, remains behind many of its Asian counterparts. The Philippines, a tropical country with many beautiful natural tourist vagabond and originally endowed with abundant natural resources has an alarming rate of exiguity level. What could be wrong in a country with a very high literacy rate not to mention a very good level of English, good economic fundamentals, and naturally endowed with resources? The answer seems to be homogenous government graft and corruption.According to Transparency International, the Philippines may be considered a country with a serious corruption job. Working on a degeneration Perception Index of 1-10, with 10 being squeaky snowy and 5 being the borderline distinguishing countries with serious corruption problem a nd those without, the Philippines scored a 2.5. This puts the Philippines at par with Benin, Gambia, Honduras, Guyana, Nepal, Russia, Rwanda, and Swaziland (Infoplease The 2006 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index). thither have in fact been a number of cases that showcase the grave problem with public service morality that the country has, a problem that viciously engenders and sustains corruption.The famous case of the Marcoses is a classic. President Ferdinand Marcos became the president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986, and left-hand(a) his post with bitter memories of the press being silenced, civil liberties being curtailed, dictatorship, twisting and vanishing of thousands of semi semipolitical enemies, and a huge amount of behest loans (Wikipedia, Ferdinand Marcos) that resulted in the ballooning of the Philippine economy and in unresolvable debts and widespread poverty. Marcos fled the Philippines in 1986 to survive a revolution. He stayed in Hawa ii until he died in 1989.Marcos remained largely unpunished. This is weighty of how the Philippines cuddles the very politicians that robs the nation. Just recently, President Joseph Estrada was tried of plunder, engaging in widespread illegal gambling, and gross corruption by the Philippine Senate. In this said event, more than half of the senator-judges voted not to open a controversial envelope that is supposed to contain strong evidence against the tried president.This resulted in other revolution that led the Philippine High Court to decide, en banc, that his vice-president, Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, to take his place. Up to the present time, Philippine politics is very much mired in corrupt practices, concretizing the claim that Philippine politics grossly lacks political morality. This has time and again been responsible for the poverty that many Filipinos suffer.In a democratizing nation such as the Philippines and in a highly democratic country like the United States , it has been demonstrated, both by reason and example, that the living of a morally exemplary life by public officials is a necessity. A democracy is rightfully threatened by the lack of a certain(prenominal) morality and a democratizing nation is viciously plagued by it, hampering democratization to truly happen.There are some instances that might prove contrary to this claim, such as the existence of chaebols, i.e., big business conglomerates in South Korea that has some exerted political influence over public officials. This speaks of an undercurrent of corruption. Neverhtless, South Korea, a highly progressing Asian nation, has continuously progressed economically in spite of or with chaebols. just now then again, it can be argued that South Korea improved not because of corruption but precisely because of the political will to punish erring public officials. A number of Korean presidents have already been tried of corruption. As such, the claim that in a democratic nation, t he living of a morally exemplary life by all publicly elected officials is indispensable remains valid.Works CitedFerdinand Marcos Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. 17 July 2007. 20 July 2007. http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Marcos.The 2006 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index 21 July 2007. http//www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781359.html.Watergate Encarta. CD-ROM. Seattle Microsoft 2002.De Leon, Hector. Textbook on the New Philippine Constitution. manilla paper Rex Books, 1987.Perry, Marvin. A History of the World, Revised Edition. Massachusetts Houghton Mifflin, 1989.