opinion

We are done commemorating one more anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human rights and, in a country like ours, where the falsification of values and the double standard are the coins of the realm, where those who hold political power refuse to give reasons for its exercise and abhor its submission to the law, we citizens have the obligation to combat the extremes of privilege and the marginalization that have placed society's cohesion and survival in danger. We citizens must act as permanent sentinels against the unrestricted accumulation of wealth, the use of power without checks or balances, the arbitrary appropriation of the fruits of other people's labor. We must fully defend our liberties, and assume our responsibilities.

We must, then, impose on ourselves the task of moving toward a minimum common denominator that permits us to lay the foundations for a civic ethics, toward better people and better institutions.

To do this we are in turn required:

1. To combat and eradicate the ethical vacuum that continues to permit those who use power to not account for their actions and to increase their impunity. We must consider that, when it's in the public sector, "the ethical vacuum also means injustice and less food, health, education or housing for those in need."

2. To reject the double talk or dual ethics that permit the hierarchy of power to preach one thing, which they contradict or ignore in practice. E.g., the functionaries who use their authority and their prerogatives for their own benefit.

3. To repudiate the adherence to values as a matter of convenience, which leads to the abandonment of what ought to be, in favor of "you do what you can." And then, those who fall into that way of thinking avail themselves of the mechanisms of power to help certain interest groups, setting aside the social values of equity, equality, liberty and solidarity.

Recall that the professional politician, although still holding onto power, has lost the role of leader. Itself suffering the amnesia of the princely politicians, the citizenry has become ever more skeptical. This lack of confidence grows due to the lack of values, and serves as the source of the moral and institutional crisis, which is also expressed in the absence of controls upon which the citizenry can rely when power acts as it does.

Thus, although we citizens are called upon to daily remind all functionaries without exception, including the president of the republic, that the private use of state resources is positively prohibited, very rarely is this done. We can't stop insisting that we won't permit the lack of an adequate legal structure, or unclear and unstable rules of the game, or the lack of coherent administrative law, to stop us from acting as citizens who are vigilant of our rights and liberties to combat ethical and institutional problems such as: privileges, impunity, monopolies, taxes, intervention in the media, undue influence in the selection of judges and magistrates, remilitarization, the management of the Canal according to the priorities of the parties, and in particular the governing party. Acting as citizens against the deficiencies and absence of transparency in the functioning of the fundamental institutions of the legal structure like the courts, the legislature, the executive, the Electoral Tribunal, the Public Ministry and the Comptroller General's office, we can thus guarantee our civic power and reduce the conditions for the existence of corruption and impunity.

Always remember that "politics is the link between the proposal and the reality. It's the rebellion of reason in the face of the alleged inevitability of the facts, and the assertion of the will over the course of history." Let us thus be civic sentinels on permanent state of alert against corruption, against impositions, and against continuity. We assume our reality, but to change it.



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Gutman, The right, the cross and the CIA
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