Immodesty aside

It is written.

In the Constitution, which mandates that “(p)ublic office is a public trust. Public officers and employees must, at all times, xxx lead modest lives.”

In an act of Congress that specifically applies to government employees, “(p)ublic officials and employees and their families shall lead modest lives appropriate to their positions and income. They shall not indulge in the extravagant or ostentatious display of wealth in any form.”

In the Civil Code, which enjoins against “(t)houghtless extravagance in expenses for pleasure or display during a period of acute public want or emergency.”

Yet the pressures of “flexing” in social media have made the above laws largely dead letter. The younger generation of public officials, and many of the kin of the older ones, simply cannot resist posting in their socmed accounts pictures of their designer clothes and fashion accoutrements, trips abroad, luxury cars and meals costing more than the monthly salary of an average working person.

The youngsters may perhaps be partially excused for promoting themselves as “jeunesse doree” (gilded youth) given their inherent impetuousness, but what of their seniors? What might their excuse(s) be if not deep-seated insecurities or midlife crises or plain and simple poor taste to which the parvenu (“biglang yaman”) are wont?

Unfortunately, the internet is forever. As public discontent — nay, disgust — rose over the hundreds of billions stolen by these dirty politicians through bogus or substandard flood control projects, there was a mad rush by them and their kith and kin, who had indiscreetly bragged about their worldly possessions, to cover their tracks by deleting their accounts and their posts.

By then, much had been downloaded and saved, and now netizens and traditional media are having a field day connecting the dots between those boastful posts and the funds stolen by them or their elders.

With the President no less ordering a lifestyle check, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) getting in on the action, and the no-nonsense Senator Rodante Marcoleta hell-bent on taking a deep dive into the flood anomalies, these injudicious fools just made locating their ill-gotten wealth infinitely easier.

But prescinding from the above, it is a source of bewilderment to this writer to see people flaunt their wealth on social media, or worse, create sites specifically to showcase their wealth (no matter if obviously ill-gotten). You would think that things illicit would be kept under wraps, but no! Evidently, the desire for online affirmation overrides all considerations of humility, decency and the compulsion to follow the laws. It is the lamest of excuses — as proffered by some self-labeled influencers — that their posts are “aspirational.” Indubitably, no ordinary Filipino, or even professional, can ever have access to the billions in public funds to which the corrupt and the vile in public office have free disposal.

One cannot even say there ought to be a law — because there is! These ulalos (worms) simply thumb their noses at it. Of course, poor taste cannot be criminally penalized, but a determined lawmaker can make such posts prima facie evidence of ownership and mandate the Ombudsman and the BIR to take legal notice.

That should put a stop to all those cringy posts. Or should we even stop these people from putting their modesty aside. After all, it would be all the easier to catch them red-handed. As the famous quote from the comedy film, “Dracula: Dead And Loving It,” goes: “We’re in luck; they’re morons!”