Bona fides, mala fides.

SABBATICAL NOTES. 11 JULY 2014. FRIDAY. N1.
Bona fides, mala fides. 

GOOD FAITH IS GOOD faith anywhere you go. 

This does not change. 

It is a concept that ought to be made stable in arguing for what the older generation would call 'good manners and right conduct'. 

Of course, with Cory Aquino and Lourdes Quisumbing at the helm of government and its educational infrastructure in the days of 'we-won-we-won' euphoria when the past and what it represented was demonized to the full, and the the EDSA People Power II victors (minus the millions who fought, but millions who were nameless) got to have an a-go-go feeling good self-congratulatory stance, good faith was bastardized and it meant 'values education' for millions of students in basic education, the values education requiring students to memorize the essentials of citizenship, the education of the young a propaganda for hyper-valuing what EDSA stands for.

Good faith eventually became personal.

Good faith eventually became a privilege.

Good faith also became that event of 'receiving' a divine message that instructs people of 'good faith' to run as senators or congressmen.

And when the icon of the yellow revolution dies, these people run for office again, someone the highest office, to continue the legacy of the People Power.

You have a TV sister to campaign for you, go.

You have a hyper-valued father whose mass-produced memory of greatness you can always run to for support, go.

You have a rosary-reciting mother who is the icon of freedom to stand beside you, in death as in the memory of that death, go.

We can always use good faith to justify anything in much the same way that Lucifer, yes, that light-bearer-turned-lord-of-darkness can always use the Bible to justify his wrong-doing.

But let us go back: good faith is good faith wherever we are: "honest intent to act without taking an unfair advantage over another person or to fulfill a promise to act, even when some legal technicality is not fulfilled". [Legal Dictionary, retrieved 11 Jul 2014]

The recourse to ignorance--to not knowing about something especially when you are supposed to know--does not make your act moral, or legal, or both. Ignorance of the law does not exempt one from his responsibility.

And this: you cannot use ignorance of the law as an excuse for good faith.

Intentions are situated. Always. And historically conditioned, contextualized.

Here is for the defenders of DAP: listen up. More than half of the Philippine population is wallowing in poverty, ladies and gentlemen.

And by the way, the Philippines did not post economic development because of this disbursement of billions of government funds.

Its economy moves and keeps on moving because of OFW remittances. This is our export now: the export of warm bodies, dignity, strength, sweat, parental absence, family dysfunction.

Good luck, Felipenas!

FELIPENAS/