Conflict Of Interest

GLIMPSES
Jose Ma. Montelibano

I read recently a news report about the latest impeachment complaint filed in Congress by individuals including Joey de Venecia of the ZTE brouhaha and some members of Congress. When asked why his father, former Speaker Joe de Venecia, did not sign the complaint, Joey replied it would have been a conflict of interest. I assume that Joey meant Joe’s position as a sympathetic and supportive father versus being a member of Congress.

In a country that is known to be the most corrupt in its region, the Philippines witnesses the principle of conflict of interest as wantonly and massive violated. And the violators can only be those in high positions wielding great power and influence for massive violations to remain unchecked. Conflict of interest affecting those holding powerful positions usually mean sacrificing the common good for personal gain. Most gain is monetary, but sometimes, it can simply be bloating one’s pride.

The conflict of interest we know usually refers to what we see - the conflict of position and personal decision, the anomaly committed against the oath of public office for obviously personal gain. Yet, we seldom relate that conflict of interest to the more unseen failure of an individual who struggles unsuccessfully to maintain integrity with higher ethics. The public conflict of interest does start with the private conflict of interest.

How many of us, then, are guilty of private conflict of interest where we sacrifice sacred virtues, fine ethics and revered traditions for less than ideal desires, like comfort and convenience? How many times did we feel insecure, then try to eliminate that insecurity by lowering the bar of ethics, or even throwing it away? Indeed, conflict of interest is first and foremost a private affair, instance after instance when we assault our integrity with rationalized deviations.

Joe de Venecia can sign the impeachment complaint if he believes that Gloria had committed wrongdoing meriting impeachment. His being a father to a complainant is not a conflict of interest, but will be if he signs simply because of the relationship or does not sign simply because of it.

Conflict of interest is to keep quiet when one should speak, or to speak when one is quiet.

Cowardice is conflict of interest, when seeing wrong committed and tolerating that wrong, maybe even justifying it.

Belonging to a family, a club, an organization, and blindly following that group against another in issues when one’s side is wrong and the other correct is conflict of interest, loyalty misused and dishonored.

Compromising the truth as we know it, to save face or to earn more -tThis is conflict of interest, even if it is private and personal.

To criticize or accuse another in order to cover one’s own mistakes or inappropriate behavior is conflict of interest.

Defending one’s pride and position by putting down others is against the truth and is a conflict of interest.

To represent an organization or an advocacy, but to be less faithful to it in order to gain favor, money or fame, this is conflict of interest. When one sits on a board of a corporation for one’s advantage and not always for the highest good of that corporation is a conflict of interest.

There are many more examples can I give but they all point to the same thing - conflict of interest is compromising our higher values for lower needs, compromising the truth because it hurts and adopting what is less than true to claim it is the truth, compromising ethical behavior for one which gains money or pride for us. When we compromise privately, we will end up compromising publicly. When we compromise as private citizens, we will compromise as public officials. When we lower the bar of what is proper, we will do what is improper.

Among the worst of conflict of interest are examples of hypocrisy. One accuses another of wrongdoing when one does exactly the same thing. It takes a thief to catch a thief, it is said. When one applies a different standard for himself or herself but measures and judges others on another, that is conflict of interest. When one says the other has committed worse mistakes, it does not make his or her mistakes correct or justified.

When the Church says that it is wrong for organizations to accept medicine from pharmaceutical companies who make contraceptives but okay to buy medicine from the same company to cure the same illness, that is hypocrisy and a conflict of interest. When the Church condemns gambling but accepts money from gambling, that is likewise hypocrisy and a conflict of interest. When the Church refrains from using its awesome power to push its faithful to feed the hungry but can scream loudly to condemn contraceptives, it negates its own cause and its credibility. All these are conflicts of interest.

When politicians adopt the values of the West to pin the onus of poverty to the poor themselves by virtue of their population growth, they cover and abet the crime of those who truly caused poverty by their greed and corruption. Any effort to deliberately cloud the truth and allow the guilty to go unrecognized for their wrongdoing and even place them on higher ground to accuse others of the very wrong they committed, that is conflict of interest.

When we ask others to solve problems that we ourselves can also solve, that is abdicating our responsibility as citizens and also a conflict of interest. Conflict of interest is more common that we believe. It starts from the inside, from each one of us, before it finds its way to the outside, to public officials and offices. Serious and massive corruption can grow and exist only with tolerance from us.

“In bayanihan, we will be our brother’s keeper and forever shut the door to hunger among ourselves.”