Public office is a public trust

“Public office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives.”

That is a quote from the 1987 Constitution of The Philippines, Article XI, Section 1, “Accountability of public officers.” A 36-page MSWord-slide of this “Code of Conduct” dominates the website of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), as it includes details of:

• An Act Providing for the Functional and Structural Organization of the Office of the Ombudsman, and for Other Purposes (Republic Act No. 6770)

• Anti-graft and Corrupt Practices Act (Republic Act No. 3019)

• Rules Implementing the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees (Republic Act No. 6713)

Rule IV: Transparency of Transaction and Access to Information

Rule VII: Public Disclosure

Rule VIII: Review and Compliance Procedure

Rule IX: Conflict of Interest and Divestment

Rule XI: Penalties

Rule XII: Free Voluntary Service

Reading through the DPWH’s public declaration of principles and code of conduct, it breaks the disillusioned and angry Filipino heart and soul that DPWH officials were knowingly doing wrong in scandalous magnitudes, being shamefacedly corrupt and greedy in total disregard of their fiduciary oath as public officials upholding public trust.

“The unraveling of irregularities in flood control projects has once again laid bare the entrenched corruption in Philippine public works and infrastructure. The release of the 2025 World Risk Report, naming the country as the world’s most disaster-prone yet again, highlighted the criticality of the issue. Its warnings on flood risks and the intensifying vulnerabilities from climate change and rapid urbanization were grimly underscored by the landfall of severe tropical storm Opong on the very day of the report’s release — Sept. 24, 2025 — the 15^th storm of the year, leaving intense flooding, devastation, and loss of lives in its wake. The convergence of scandal, disaster, and public indignation — symbolized by the Trillion Peso March just days earlier (Sept. 21) — signals a reckoning: calamities are not just natural and climate change phenomena, but moral indictments of state failure,” declared the University of the Philippines Center for Integrative and Development Studies (PIDS) in its Oct. 2, 2025 statement.

“Moral indictments of state failure,” the PIDS diagnosed. “The ongoing Senate Blue Ribbon Committee inquiries have exposed an elaborate kickback distribution system — anchored in mutual benefit agreements between favored private contractors and a hierarchy of government entities — in plundering public funds from flood infrastructure projects. Political payoffs are normalized as the cost of doing business. In return, favored contractors operate under the protection of district engineers, lawmakers, and executive officials, while ghost projects, substandard works, and hazardous infrastructures proliferate. Testimonies, however, have also revealed a nefarious orchestration of selective truth-telling — designed less to expose systemic theft than to shield political patrons and recalibrate alliances. The spectacle of blame-shifting amid mounting evidence raises the deeper question: can accountability hold in a state where infrastructures of impunity are as deeply embedded as the infrastructures of corruption they protect?”

Let the UP development experts say it as it is (therefor the lengthy direct quotes from their analyses and conclusions). It is truly difficult for the ordinary citizen to understand and accept that “we’ve been had” by the public officials we have trusted. Then there’s the horrible gargoyle jeering at our guilty collective conscience that we, the people have allowed all the anomalies and corruption to happen and we have done nothing or little to stop it all.

Columnist Manolo Quezon, in his Jan. 12 Inquirer column, reported on a Social Weather Station (SWS) survey that revealed: “Roughly speaking, three out of four Filipinos consider bribery to be corruption (but a quarter of the people don’t share the same view); two-thirds consider it corrupt to misuse public or corporate funds; about the same number consider kickbacks for contracts of services to be corrupt (but one-third thinks it’s OK). Less than half think evading taxes or regulatory requirements, insider trading, or financial fraud is corrupt (more than half seem to think it’s OK), and more than two-thirds do not think that nepotism or favoritism in hiring or promotions is corrupt, while close to eight out of 10 Filipinos don’t see anything corrupt in not disclosing conflicts of interest.” Quezon’s judgment: “Our society seems to have a built-in moral elasticity, with more than enough approving of corruption to be willing accomplices.”

“Moral elasticity” sounds like shamefully bad branding for our society. In a layman’s intuitive definition of objective morality as the clear-cut right versus the definitely wrong, there can be no toggling back and forth from what is right to what is wrong — there is only black or white, no grays in between. “Someone who purposely commits an offensive act, even though they know the difference between what is right and wrong, is immoral,” psychologists at verywellmind.com clarify. “Someone who acknowledges the difference between right and wrong, but who is not concerned with morality is amoral.” Moral elasticity makes allowances and compromises, consciously or subconsciously bending towards situational self-interest or self-preservation. “The end justifies the means” or “It depends (on the situation)” are taglines of moral “flexibility.”

The SWS findings on the changing moral values on corruption among Filipinos are worrisome. The alarming swing of the majority to leniency or even actual abetting or condonation of wrongdoing by public officials and functionaries, suggests a reversal of the momentum towards peace, harmony, and development of this struggling country, the Philippines, in the competitive world.

But corrupt public officials must not be allowed to betray the country and bring the people into poverty. National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose said in 2006, “…(finally,) we are poor because we have lost our ethical moorings. We condone cronyism and corruption and we don’t ostracize or punish the crooks in our midst. Both cronyism and corruption are wasteful, but we allow their practice because our loyalty is to family or friend, not to the larger good.”

A Pulse Asia survey conducted from Dec. 12 to 15, 2025 (published on Jan. 12) found that 59% of respondents believe those responsible for the multibillion-peso flood control scandal will go to jail, while only 13% think they will escape punishment. Another 28% were unsure. Although still a majority, the 59% in December is 12 points lower than the 71% of respondents in September 2025 who believed the flood control culprits would be punished.

Forty-four percent of Filipino adults believe the justice system can successfully prosecute high-level corruption cases like the flood control scandal. Meanwhile, 24% expressed no confidence, and 33% were unsure, the Pulse Asia survey showed.

But the surveys on trusting that justice will be served might not hold true, after the latest news on the flood control investigations. ABS-CBN News reported on Jan. 19, that the inspection of flood control projects from 2016 to 2025 will have to start all over again, due to reported discrepancies in the grid coordinates submitted by former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan to the investigating offices. DPWH Undersecretary Arthur Bisnar said the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police have so far already inspected 10,238 flood control projects. Of this, 252 were declared non-existent or “ghost.” He said the authorities would have to revisit these projects. Back to square one.

Isn’t public office a public trust?

Amelia H. C. Ylagan is a doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.

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