In my last column I pointed out that there are different facets to consider in the fight against corruption. There is the legal dimension which involves laws and policies. There is the psychological dimension which attacks corruption through psychological sanctions like delicadeza and  hiya. But these are not enough for an effective war against corruption. What is most needed is the moral dimension.

The moral dimension requires a sense of God, an awareness that God exists and that what we do matters to him, and  he should matter in the decisions we make both in private and in public.  Without a sense of God to whom  nothing is hidden and before whom we are accountable, it is very difficult and  even impossible to live uprightly.  Regretfully, we must admit that often we do not factor God into our decision-making. Often, while we profess to believe in God, we act as if God did not exist, or if he exists, we do not matter to him and he should not matter to us.

Another obstacle in the fight against corruption   from the moral point of view is the secularistic  mentality. In this worldview all that matters is this world. There is nothing beyond this world and this temporal life. So, our concern should be to find our happiness in this life and think only of the temporal consequences of our actions.  There is no life beyond this one, and so our actions have  no consequences beyond the confines of this world. Obviously, with this kind of worldview, what is of paramount importance is  not to avoid doing wrong but to avoid getting caught. In fact, for corrupt people, it is not the ten commandments of God that matter, but the eleventh, which says, “You shall not get caught.”

Related closely to practical atheism and the secularistic mentality is moral relativism. Put at its simplest, moral relativism says that moral laws are not discovered and do not impose themselves upon us from a supreme authority which we call God. We make our own moral laws, the rules we live by. Right is what we say is right, and wrong is what we say is wrong. But it is we who determine what is right or wrong. Thus there need not be any permanent moral norms. We can alter our moral criteria according to  circumstances. What is morally right for me is what suits me and makes me happy, and I am at liberty to do what I want provided I do not do injury to anyone.

For those who espouse moral relativism there is no fixed criterion of right and wrong by which to measure our actions. Each one determines for himself/herself what is right for  him/her or what is wrong  The supreme virtue for moral relativists is tolerance of other moral viewpoints and actuations. A consequence of this viewpoint is that people legitimize even wrongdoing by giving it another name, like “pabaon” or “pasalubong,” or “SOP”  or “kalakaran.”

It bothers me that in the present version of the RH bill, when it comes to  the dissemination of contraceptive pills, devices and procedures, many adjectives like “medically safe,” “legal” “effective” are used but the word “ethical”  is nowhere mentioned. We are going the wrong way when we no longer consider the ethical dimension in the formulation of our laws.

When the ethical dimension is left out, we lose the battle not only against graft and corruption but the battle to preserve  our humanity.