TURNING POINT: Incarceration, not Resignation

In the midst of the flood control scandal that is drowning some senators and government officials, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano suddenly called for all elected government officials to resign and allow a snap election to take place.

Whimsical, the call is myopic, defeatist, and serves no pragmatic purpose, and may yet snuff our democratic system of governance.

Resignation offers no solution to stop corruption, implying surrender that nothing can be done about it. The intrinsic problem in governance is left unsolved. The gargantuan flood control mess remains to haunt us.

If all elected officials had to resign, who would exercise the functions of government? Cayetano is suggesting that we dismantle democracy by promoting a military takeover or plain anarchy.

And the conduct of snap elections is unconstitutional. Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. ordained it in 1986, in his capacity as a Martial Law dictator.

Cayetano should have proposed a measure to deter a repeat of the historic flood control projects’ corruption.

The call should have been for the rapid prosecution of the culprits for plunder, where appropriate, and to jail them for life without bail.