You also dwelled on principles but you seem to forget that out of these principles, laws are made. And we need to follow the laws, and punish those who break them. I’ll try to remember the points we discussed here and use them the next points we will discuss.

Unless she do something to correct it, she will continue to suffer. Hide it, cover it up, evade from it… and she will even continue to suffer more. And even worst she will be violating another principle, the principle of Integrity.

Integrity and honesty is a very important principle. There is just no way that you can break these principles because Honesty and integrity create the foundation of trust which is essential to cooperation and long term personal and interpersonal growth or in Glorias case her leadership.

If I were her I could have just resignend, NO IFS, NO BUTS. RESIGN! If she do that then she back on tract to the living principle of Honesty and Integrity.

Unfortunately, I am not her and we just dont have the same values. And I just cannot forced my values into her.

So my choice is to prosecute her. And our Constitution defined that process to be Impeachment. I am very much a pro impeachment, Jon. and I personaly feel bad that that is not happening.

So what will I do with my frustrations?????

Now here is where I have to exercize my FREEDOM OF CHOICE. Should I be proactive or reactive???. And I chose to be proactive. That is why I dont want to dwell on who voted for or against the recent impeachment. Id rather dwell on why and how they arrive to such a vote. And the decent expalantion I got from congressmen that I trusted and believed was that there was insufficiency in substance. That is the issue! Then I will focus more on the issue. Why and how come it was never sufficient in substance????Learn diligently from the errors and prevent and avoid the same errors in the next impeachment.

Do you mean that Gloria violated the principle of Honesty because she cheated? What then should be done about it?

Cheating is not fundamental so it can never be principle. Its a values. Thieves just like every body has values too.

Honesty is a Principle. And Gloria has seriously violated that and look what she got as consequences.!!!! You cannot just go against a principle! You’ll just break against your self against it.

Punishing a cheater is a value. Fairness is principle.

Please tell me if this is a principle or not: Cheating is unacceptable and cheaters should be punished.

To me it is guiding principle.

your opening statement is really horrible that Im having a hard time deciding on wether to engage on dicussion with or not. eto yung lagi nating pinagtatalunan lalo na doon sa pinpoint out on why we are taking offense on the way buencamino wrote. kasi yung opening paragraph are really designe are really very negative, name calling, judgemental, insults ….

But you did raised some points that I woudl love to talk about. later na siguro after I come home from work. I just have to go to work right now. And maybe by the time, I have gone overwith my negatiev feeling towards your opening statements.

Or maybe you can just read along with my reply to jon and I will just try to mention some important points that you raised along the way.

Before we continue this discussion, I believe its really important that we are alined from which we are coming from. Do we have the same definition of principles and values. To me this two are different things. To me principles are fundamental laws making it an objectiev reality and values are ethics or standards and therfore a subjective reality. If we focus on principles there no is we cannot agree. But if we wnat to be values centered, dyan talaga mag kakagulo tayo. Dahil nga subjective ang value eh.

In your reply, the betterment of the nation is the principle( The principle of growth) while going after gloria and what to do with her after she cheated is values. Again subjective eto and highly divisisve kasi iba iba naman talaga ang values natin and the tendency is for people of the same or those who share values to group together.

Principles are like territories while values are like maps going to territories. Being fundamental you can never go against prinicples pero sa values pwede.

Now para sa akin para hindi tayo nagkakagulo, I d rather focus on principle or be principle centered.

Yang ginagawa nyo of going after gloria at all cost is values. Maganda rin naman yan kasi papunta rin yan doon sa objective reality or principles of nation’s growth. In priniciple, I dont havea problem with that. but that is not my value eh. So I can just sincerely wish you goodluck for that.

Ang source nag pinagkakaguluhan natin is when one group who share values becomes so insistent or even forcing their values on another group who have different values or doesn’t share the same values. Dyan tayo nag kakagulo!!!

What I would suggest is that for everyone or all groups to be priniciple centered. And for as long as all other groups are going to the same principle, hayaan na…..It woudl even be better for each group to share their learnings on their route going to the same territory, the betterment of the nation.

Those are largely false choices you have defined for yourself.

1. Arroyo cheating or Election cheating as a whole – As Jon has explained above, the two are not mutually exclusive. A full investigation ‘how’ Arroyo cheated would help reveal how cheating at the highest levels general take place. It’s practical value would be to identify who are the parties involved (e.g. Comelece, local government, military) and would allow these institutions to clean house before the next elections. In this way, it contributes to helping eliminate cheating as a whole. Also, while eliminating ‘election cheating as a whole’ is a worthy goal, it does not address the immediate issue of the President’s legitimacy or don’t you think this is an issue?

2. Morality or Effectiveness – I suppose you’re referring to the morality of Arroyo’s removal versus the her continuing ‘effectiveness’ if she remains in power. Even assuming that Arroyo is ‘effective’ (which given her legitimacy problem is also in question) this is a shortsighted trade-off. Stripping our political system of its moral basis is dangerous as Manolo has explained in his speech to the Rotary:

‘when the middle class and the rich either abandon, or are stripped, of all pretenses to public and private decency, you have a truly dangerous situation. No one is left with any moral authority over anyone else; what once served to keep everything cozy and looking good, proves as rotten and corrupt as those once considered moral, political, and social inferiors. So who has any incentive to worship anything except power and wealth? Why should anyone help or believe anyone else?‘

By condoning Arroyo’s cheating, do you want to be complicit in this process – replacing morality with power and wealth?

3. Issue oriented or personality oriented – As shown in previous comments, we have incompatible definitions so nothing more can be said on this.

4. Circle of Concern vs. Circle of Influence – It is a given that as individuals, our circle of influence on matters of public concern is miniscule, as it should be. That is why collective action like One Voice, BlacknWhite or other groups like it, is needed. Once we decide on the right thing to do, then people need to act collectively. In the first place, the issue of election cheating means that even the miniscule ‘circle of influence’ of the individual voter has been violated. This should be restored.

5. Reactive or proactive – I suppose that you are implying that being ‘proactive’ is superior to being ‘reactive’. That’s not always the case. If someone in front of you suffers a heart attack, it is not the right time to lecture about CPR in the interest of saving future heart attack victims. It is common sense to attend to the immediate situation first. As it is, you are using being proactive as an excuse for not reacting to the issue in front of you.

But take for example your point #1. Arroyo cheating or as a whole. What is the best way to achieve our end purpose which is the betterment of our nation? I personally believe that cheaters should be punished (we go back again to the Garci tapes, the new ones regarding Colcol and Rasalan, etc. as points of discussion). That’s the principle. Any time is a good time to start living with that principle as our society (or any society for that matter) cannot really function properly if cheaters are rewarded. So I cannot really agree when somebody says “everybody cheated but forget about it, we move on.”. The implication is we will catch the cheats next time around.
This point has been discussed in so many fora and everybody has expressed their opinions. Whoever gathers the biggest voice, usually gets what they want. So if you and Bong Austero represents the majority, then what you’re advocating will be the way (for now) to go. However, those of different minds will continue to nurture their ideas and wait for their time when their voice is stronger.