Moral Outrage

Politics and morality cannot be divorced

Inquirer News Service

THE just-concluded impeachment proceedings against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo highlighted the assumption that this process is political and not moral -- a numbers game, wherein the majority, right or wrong, prevails.

I submit that this "fragmented mindset" -- wherein human activity in economics, politics, business, education, etc. is divorced from ethics, morals and values -- has resulted precisely in our fragmented society today. It is the root cause of most of the problems of the human condition in general, and of our country in particular.

Business and economics without values and ethics result in poverty, alienation and human degradation. In fact, postmodern business and economic theory states that business and economic success rests more on complementation and cooperation, rather than on ruthless competition; and that the more moral and ethical one is in his or her business practice, the more successful he or she will become. The world's biggest and most successful companies have learned this -- many of them, the hard way.

Education likewise is fast learning that true education is more of formation, rather than information; and that facts and technology are better learned and used if they are taught in the context of values and morality -- in the seamless integration of technology and values. For in truth, education is what is left behind, after one has forgotten everything that he or she memorized in class.

The same is true with politics. Edsa People Power I and II -- against Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada -- is really the result of the outpouring of moral outrage against two presidents who divorced politics from its moorings on morals and values. And the tangible taste of incompleteness and lack of closure in the Arroyo impeachment case is again another example of politics bereft of morality. President Arroyo and her majority allies have to realize that they can only be successful politically if they practice politics within the context of morals and values.

For, indeed, there is only one "Reality," albeit with two dimensions -- the interior and the exterior; or spirituality and economics; or moral values and politics; or ethics and business; or morals and praxis. And that any attempt to improve the human condition will have better chances of success if it involves the seamless integration of these two dimensions of one and the same Reality. We can only be reconciled as a nation if politics is practiced in the context of values and morality.

SAMUEL J. YAP, 118 Granada, San Antonio Heights, Sto. Tomas, Batangas