In the midst the hullabaloo happening in our government involving the Office of the Vice President Sara Duterte, wherein public officials are involved on the issue of public office and public trust, the Secretary-General of the General Alliance of Workers Assn., Wennie Sancho believes that the public must involve themselves because the public welfare is at stake.
Let us not forget that the principles “Public office and a public trust” and accountability to the people are fundamental concepts in the Philippine Constitution, specifically outlined in Article XI Sec. 1-3, Sancho said in a statement.
These principles emphasize that public officials, including the Vice-President, are entrusted with serving the peoples’ interests, not their own. The key implications is that public officials must act with integrity, loyalty and efficiency, prioritizing the public interest over personal gain. Since the issue involves public office and public trust, the people or the public must voice out their sentiments so that the voice of the people shall reign supreme. It is time for the people to act, including people’s organization, because the issue involves accountability of the public officials to the people, he said.
Sancho said the importance of maintaining public trust in public officers is essential to the general welfare and necessary to the preservation of the government and every effort made to insure that the men and women elected and appointed to discharge their functions are those imbued with a high sense of public service morality who consider their position as sacred trust and not as means for the attainment of power and wealth.
Breach of public trust or betrayal of public trust refers to actions by public officials that violates the faith and confidence placed in them by the people. This concept is rooted in the idea that public offices are entrusted with serving the public interest. One of the key elements is misuse of authority. Using official power for personal gain would result in the loss of public confidence and the erosion of trust in government institutions. Where the public officers thus chosen, are irresponsible, dishonest, of doubtful loyalty, inefficient or unreasonable, the government itself, loses the faith and confidence of the people, he said.
The well-known dictum that public office is a public trust will always serve as a reminder to public officers of the “sacred character of their task” and a warning that violations thereof, would be nothing less than sacrilege, because it constitute betrayal of public trust. The act of a public official should not be only legal but moral as well. He should be a role model of honesty, competence and high standard of morality, worthy of emulation, Sancho said.
Unfortunately, Vice-President Sara Duterte, had not given a good example as a public official when she publicly threatened to have ordered the killing of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, in the event that she would be assassinated. That was not only conduct unbecoming of a Vice-President, but a betrayal of public trust, he added.*
