Double standard and bamboo diplomacy
On the matter of corruption, it escapes comprehension why some administrative cases come first while more compelling ones are just frozen in place with no further legal action.
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On the matter of corruption, it escapes comprehension why some administrative cases come first while more compelling ones are just frozen in place with no further legal action.
Let’s foreground the view that there already emerged all the makings of a double standard of morality (DSOM) in mainstream bureaucracy. Given similar action or situation, morality depends on who is doing it or to which one belongs; whereupon there corresponds different sets of values, judgments, or expectations applied. In effect, the controlling norm of fairness and equal worth is broken.
If there’s a qualitative version of what is called outlier in statistics, it will help us understand the counter-intuitive, if not antithetical, importance whenever we notice outliers; also known as externalities or unintended consequences. It should be emphasized that any single outlier has got to be explained and therefore a matter of consequence; that when better understood helps reconfigure what socio-moral order should be.
It becomes a clear indication in body polity of dysfunctionality owing to the inimical influence of bureaucratic politics at all tiers — from street-level bureaucrats up to middle executives all the way to heads of agencies, nay, presidential appointees. Such appointments logically trip the whole meritocracy principle in public service and bastardize the classic notion of equal opportunity employer.
Merit and fitness may have been relegated to the background as the Civil Service Commission’s (CSC) core function, it being more preoccupied with disciplinary work.
Albeit there’s no available caseload count, it’s safe to infer that the CSC’s implementing a 36-percent case decongestion target presupposes that it has to improve its present case resolution rate of 60 percent on cases decided while it aims for a 75-percent promulgation rate. Much is left to be desired on how it navigates the recurring challenges to “public value governance.”
In a qualitative sense, there are parallel terms that approximate the statistical concept of outlier such as the following, viz., anomaly, aberrant, deviant, discrepant, or atypical cases where all these describe “data points, experiences, or behaviors that diverge significantly from the main patterns, themes, or cultural norms.” Certainly, there’s an organizational culture being observed, deviation from it subjects a public servant to appropriate disciplinary action.
Truth is, DSOM is the big elephant in the room. On the matter of corruption, it escapes comprehension why some administrative cases come first while more compelling ones are just frozen in place with no further legal action. This comeuppance lends itself to demonstrating that it punishes one while it rewards another. Call it the Pareto efficient, Nash equilibrium, Prisoner’s Dilemma, Tribalism, call it what you please.
The aborted, now-forgotten, if not virtually archived, floodgate corruption probe of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee leaves footprints of double standard or actor-observer bias. It’s more graphically dramatized with the charge of an unbailable offense (i.e., plunder) and subsequent detention of a vocal critic of the administration who is an incumbent senator, albeit this isn’t the first time in history.
Equally, there’s the ongoing impeachment trial of a Vice President as the invisible handiwork of whoever her nemesis is. In both cases, there appears to be a luminous deficit of evidence that could sustain conviction over acquittal.
In diplomatic relations, similar footprints prove how the government navigates its maritime row with China or other littoral states with overlapping or conflicting claims. It’s a government that cannot even earn the consensus of the ASEAN community of nation-states in its favor.
It might be unfortunate that diplomatic tact is not the strong suit of those who head the defense establishment and the monolithic military organization. Again, some form of double standard is in play, favoring one power over another when it could have replicated a Vietnamese diplomatic stratagem that took the middle of the road in bilateral or multilateral relations.
Vietnam benefits from China as well as the US with its smooth diplomatic ties. Simply put, strategic hedging means “balancing deep economic and institutional ties with Beijing against vital security, maritime and economic cooperation with Washington.”
Why can’t our social scientists reprise this “bamboo diplomacy,” described as strategically maintaining autonomy without taking sides in major power competition?”
Now, where to?
