Politician and public servant

By Alex P. Vidal

“Politicians like to tell people what they want to hear-and what they want to hear is what won’t happen.”—Paul Samuelson

ANYONE engaged in the job of civil service is called a public servant.

A public servant works for central government and state governments, and answers to the government, not a political party.

There are public servants who behave more like politicians vice versa.

And there are politicians who prefer to be specifically called as public servants rather than their positions or titles.

Politicians are aware they are tagged as “schemers who try to gain advantage in an organization in sly or underhanded ways.”

A politician is the “one engaged in party politics, especially as a trade; one who promotes the interests of a political party,” and thus it quickly took on overtones, not typically good ones: “one concerned with public affairs for the sake of profit or of a clique.”

Samuel Johnson defines it as “A man of artifice; one of deep contrivance.”

The meaning of public servant and politician may vary in our series of analogical elucidations, but they may still be cousins in etymology.

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A true public servant doesn’t hanker for publicity when he performs his job or achieves something in office.

A politician, on the other hand, thinks the media should report (only) all the good things he has done and sweep the bad things under the rags.

When he files his certificate of candidacy (COC) during the election season, a public servant right away reveals his plans and the desired position in government.

He doesn’t pander in suspended animation; his intention is purely to serve, nothing more and nothing less.

A public servant is motivated by the will and enthusiasm to hit the ground running on the first day in civil service.

He views publicity myopically as a distraction and eschews it as much as possible.

He knows that once he has accepted the government job, he will be open for public scrutiny and must walk within the corridors of transparency and accountability during his tenure.

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A true public servant loves to work behind the scene, a silent worker and one who doesn’t give a hoot if he isn’t recognized by his peers, especially in public.

A politician, on the other hand, loves to always play political peek-a-boo or Trip to Jerusalem before, during, and after the filing of his COC, a gimmickry mastered by those who want to cling to power and, thus, confuse all and sundry by wearing different hats before finalizing their COCs.

A politician specifically regards elected political office as a career even if he is lazy by nature and ignorant about the basic principles of civil service.

Thus he loves the hooplas, the drum and bugle, the blaring of horns and glitter of lights, cheers and adulation from the madding crowd to boost his ego.

A “politician” broadly speaking can be anyone who seeks to achieve political power in the government.

In the week-long official filing of COCs for the May 9, 2022 elections, we have encountered a mixed variety of public servants and politicians who provided the public enough entertainment amid the Covid-19 hullabaloo.

What we’ve seen, so far, in the front page and prime time news these past days was a veritable display of political smorgasbord and hilarious maneuvers by political parties and their demigods led by no less than the president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, who accompanied his favorite pet, Sen. Bong Go, when the latter filed his COC for vice president, which, we all know, will be substituted in the eleventh hour.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two dailies in Iloilo)