In choosing our leaders and public officials

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

WHAT criteria to use in choosing our leaders and public officials? Definitely, we should hold integrity and competence as indispensable requirements. We need to look into the background of each candidate for public office whether these criteria are met.

Integrity ensures ethical decision-making, transparency and accountability that can foster public trust. It makes a leader consistently following through on his commitments and promises. It safeguards the well-being and interests of others, approaching them with empathy and understanding.

Competence requires the leaders and public officials to have the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to perform their job effectively. It enables them to navigate complex challenges that are sprouting especially these days.

There should be a process of leadership development that highlights these two requirements since leadership plays a crucial role in organizational growth. Such development programs should enhance the skills and knowledge of leaders and public officials.

We really should know how to assess the integrity and competence of any candidate seeking public office. Of course, to be realistic, we have to put these qualities also in the context of the candidates’ popularity and electability. But for Pete’s sake, let’s not make mere popularity the main guide in electing our officials.

We have to go beyond looks, pr gimmicks, smart sound bites, spins and vote-getting machineries. Sad to say, we cannot help but observe how local candidates tend to congregate around national candidates and political parties with vast and deep war chest. They are there more for the “fund” of it.

Neither should we go by mere genealogy and pedigree—that one is the son or daughter of so-and-so, or that his father or mother died in some dramatic circumstances. This is a dangerous way to elect officials. It’s like impulse buying that leaves many of us with the buyer’s remorse.

Neither still should we be guided by some forms of kinship—blood, political, cultural, social, geographical. While these factors and conditions have their valid values, they can only play a secondary role. They should never be the primary criteria. Of course, a big no-no is choosing candidates on the basis of who give us more money, dole-outs and other forms of perks. This way can only spell disaster.

We should not even be guided solely by the candidates’ fame or their mass appeal, though that would already be a big help. We have to be wary of image-building tactics that do not necessarily show the true character of the candidates.

We should not be naïve as not to consider the many subtle forms of propaganda that sway people’s favor unfairly. We have to discern whether that mass appeal that candidates may have, spring truly from some divine or humanly legitimate charisma, or it is simply a product of some witchery.

What we should look into in vetting the candidates is their track record, their performance in public service, their achievements and their mistakes and how they handled those.

Integrity and competence should always go together. Integrity without competence would not give us good governance. Neither competence without integrity. They are supposed to have a mutual relationship.

With respect to integrity, we have to be clear that its ultimate foundation source and goal is none other than God, our Creator and Father. Hence, we have to understand that the pursuit of integrity cannot be done outside of this original religious context. Any understanding of integrity outside of this would be compromised right from the start.

With integrity properly developed, the pursuit of competence would be facilitated and also properly exercised.

Email: roycimagala@gmail.com