I find it really bewildering how some public officials take an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the Republic and all laws, legal orders and decrees of its duly constituted authorities, without meaning it. I suppose they skip the part about “mental reservation and purpose of evasion,” but that is between themselves and their God.

I say this because the highest law of the land — for the edification of some public officials — is the Constitution and not the law of survival nor of the jungle, as some of them are wont to think. And quite clear it is in Article XI, Section 1 that public officials are “to lead modest lives.”

“Republic Act 6713 expands on the directives and extends it to the officials’ kin: Public officials and employees and their families shall lead modest lives appropriate to their positions and income. They shall not indulge in extravagant or ostentatious displays of wealth in any form.”

Violation thereof is actionable, not only criminally but civilly as well, under Article 25 of the New Civil Code, which provides that “(t)houghtless extravagance in expenses for pleasure or display during a period of acute public want or emergency may be stopped by order of the courts at the instance of any government or private charitable institution.”

This proscription is independent of that which prohibits the taking of bribes, on which there are provisions aplenty both in the aforementioned law, as well as the Revised Penal Code, the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (the best legacy of the late great Senator Arturo Tolentino), and Presidential Decree 49, which is still a good law. Thus, a public official’s money may be clean as driven snow, but that is not an excuse to flaunt it.

Unfortunately for some of our legislators who want to project lily-white images while grilling resource persons on their supposed illegal acts, netizens quickly saw through the hypocrisy and took it upon themselves to scrutinize the lifestyles of these Pharisees.

And — surprise, surprise! — it appears that these supposed guardians of the public purse cannot seem to restrain themselves from buying extremely expensive purses of the most opulent luxury brands. Thus we have images of these lawmakers wearing multi-million-peso designer bags, clothes and watches and flaunting them in the most public manner possible (on social media).

One seems to be extra fond of his Mercedes Benz, bullet-proof American SUV and Rolls-Royce, calling them his “babies.” And an aging lothario appears to have been caught taking expensive trips abroad with a sultry social media sensation who is not his wife. The latter lawmaker was right: in this day and age, anything is accessible via Google. Sadly it worked against him.

But then it’s been said that “money is loud, but wealth whispers.” Meaning, those who flex it are most probably parvenus, previously insignificant people who came into some money and feel obliged to display their new status to cover up for their insecurities and to gain social acceptance. They know not that to be considered part of the elite, it is not enough to have money, even lots of it — one needs to possess character, learning, delicacy, social graces and a certain je ne sais quoi that cannot be purchased even in the Champs-Elysees.

I have really wealthy friends you would not know from the ordinary Filipino by looking at their clothes or accessories. Yet these people have enough money to buy all the designer brands these lawmakers own and have enough left over to start another multinational company. But they wouldn’t do that, because to them such displays are gaudy.

All other affectations make these officials nothing but (to quote the late Cheri Gil), “second-rate, trying hard copycats.” Stated differently, they’re only making asses of themselves.