Corruption is not without a price. Each day that we fail to act on it, we are paying a social and economic price, for our country’s future and that of the next generation.

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen

And waste its sweetness in the desert air.”

In its context in Thomas Grey’s “Elegy” it is actually a metaphor for common folk who do heroic things that are never reported in the news or recorded in history. Like a precious stone unmined at the bottom of the ocean or a beautiful flower blooming in the deep woods, their work may not have been seen or known, but it is nevertheless heroic. “Rubies and roses are beautiful,” Thomas Grey would say, “whether anyone ever sees them or not.”

In the broad field of politics, we have men and women who like rubies and flowers are not yet discovered and their brilliance is not yet fully appreciated.

Gone are Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago and Senator Joker Arroyo for their brilliance and eloquence as lawmakers but we admire them more and we are awed by their sterling character and adherence to their principles of fairness and justice for rejecting the bribe and deciding to acquit an innocent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Then Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., now President of the Republic of the Philippines, like Senators Santiago and Arroyo rejected the bribe and voted to acquit Chief Justice Renato Corona. And for the nobility of that act, of adhering to the principles of fairness and justice, Bongbong Marcos was catapulted by the Filipino people to the highest post in the land.

President Bongbong Marcos has already greeted President Donald Trump on his recent election to the presidency of the United States of America. President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. was close to President Ronald Reagan, a staunch Republican. Their families became very close friends. In 1975, I experienced very good friendships with American families when I attended a four-month family planning and financial management courses under the NEDA-USAID scholarship grant in the Republican government of Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States.

I went to New York on 21 January 1981, during the administration of President Reagan, to join the ad hoc United Nations intergovernmental working group on accounting and reporting standards in transnational corporations which helped me prepare for the holding of the INTOSAI on 19-27 April 1983 as chairman of the editorial committee.

In 2020, at almost the end of the first term of President Trump I wrote a poem in his honor. I am publishing some stanzas of it now to join Bongbong in hailing his presidency.

Trump really cares

Trump has talent and charm of making warring men friend.

He met both Kim Jung Un, leader of North Korea and Moon Jae-In,

President of South Korea right at the border village of Panmunjom,

A breakthrough for peace, symbolic spectacle of his obsession.

Trump struck peace accord between Israel and United Arab Emirate,

The peace pact between Israel and Bahrain may be followed by the rest

As Kosovo agreed to recognize Israel and Serbia also moved to imitate

Thus a desire for lasting peace is starting to grow across the Middle East.

Although Donald Trump possesses some flaws and faults like we all do,

He also possesses admirable qualities we can all strive to follow,

That have been instrumental in helping him achieve outstanding successes,

The legacy from US presidency to Nobel Prize Nominations for Peace.

The strongest arguments that Trump really cares,

He would do everything to save his countrymen,

Putting in line the nation’s resources and prayers,

Covid-19 from China must all be forbidden. (To be continued)