FINALLY, shameful government officials will be sanctioned for shameless publicity.
Sen. Mirriam Defensor-Santiago recently introduced the “anti-epal bill,” which aims to forbid conceited politicians from donning themselves with laurels for every accomplishment—whether mundane or extraordinary—they’ve made during their term.
The word epal is a slang Filipino term that denotes people who craves for attention.
Once enacted, public officials who are guilty of placing their names on government projects will have to face six to 12 months of imprisonment.
It’s only essential that such bill should be imposed. As ordinary citizens, we do not owe any government official for doing their job. We might as well place a tarpaulin on our gates displaying the architect who designed our homes (using our money), or place a billboard to commemorate the engineer who help built the Nagtahan bridge. Our editor in chief might as well place streamers around the campus whenever a new issue of the Varsitarian is released to the Thomasian community.
By the power of democracy, these egotistical officials are the ones who should be indebted to us, for it was through the ballots we cast amid long queue and sweltering heat in voting precincts during elections that put them to power in the first place. Moreover, government projects are funded by taxpayers’ money.
This has to be one of the worst cases of corruption—pilfering the taxpayers’ funds for personal use and also using them to manipulate the population by thinking that the people owe them.It actually leads to a vicious cycle of delusion of grandeur; politicians erroneously thought that, we, plebeians must be down on our knees and praise the mayor, congressman, or governor for finally cleaning our creeks elevating the roads. Its as if because of their altruism in donating a huge amount of funds—which they don’t—that these developments in our country were taking place.
But then again, this shrewd tactic of advertising their names to the public is probably their way to constantly reminding them people of their achievements for the next elections. It’s their way of proving themselves worthy to retain their position or further climb the political ladder.
In Caloocan, I never fail to see the name of our mayor as I ride the jeepney on my way to UST. His name, face, and trademark logo fills every possible inanimate object, from infrastructure projects down to the uniforms of our barangay officials. The urban landscape in the city never fails to remind us who the mayor is, making it one bad case of horror vacui. I should also note that you would never see even an iota of the names of the former mayors of the city.
The anti-epal bill would not only address these concerns, but would definitely separate those who are just doing it for popularity’s sake, from those who are doing it for public service. This paradigm shift will be the counter-culture of the utang na loob mentality that the officials instilled on us.
Once the bill has been finally passed, I hope to finally see our city free of these ridiculous billboards, and I could finally say that Caloocan City does not belong to our mayor, but to all of us.
However, I dread that sooner or later, these officials who crave for the limelight would seek for loopholes in the bill, and would again try to give justification in placing their names on various projects or events. I could only hope that. Santiago’s bill will be airtight.
Mr. Conrado de Quiros was right, more than an Anti-epal bill, what this country really needs is an “anti-kapal” bill.
