By CC Pung
Justice of Peace
Tokoh Wartawan Sabah and FT Labuan
Recently I noticed an unusually number of public officials from the floundering Sabah Electricity to the ever-struggling Yayasan Sabah’s forays into higher education.
Most, to me, don’t mean much.
The spokesmen were merely regurgitating words contained in documents on the founding of their respective institutions.
That they had to repeat their commitment in itself meant they have been falling short perennially since their founding.
Of course they tactfully avoided mentioning about having fallen short.
Therefore, they didn’t see a need to tell how they wished to live up to the commitments.
It’s typical, hollow rhetoric.
Commitment is not some vague, nondescript mission statement.
It ought to be a statement of purpose backed by a set of plans and action.
When I was younger, a priest told me that ‘love’ is more than an adjective denoting some lovey-devey romantic notions and relationships.
He stressed that it is an ‘action word’, meaning that I need to back up with action every time I declare my ‘love’ for the Lord, or to my spouse, to my country, and so on.
This reminds me of ‘commitment’ which, in believe, should be looked at as a word that demands substantiation.
We must not allow public officials to get away with their superficial declaration of commitment to this and that and more.
We owe it to ourselves to ask them to back up their commitment with action, or at least a plan of action.
All of is can easily recall the number of times public officials got away with hollow deflation.
Remember they all pledged their commitment to integrity and anti-graft.
But look at the frequency of corruption committed by civil servants.
Remember they promised to keep us abreast with the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Where? What?
The people who made the pledges probably haven’t developed an ability to discourse on the inevitability of technology.
I feel that when ordinary people among the masses assert our demand for honest language from public officials, we force them and their speech writers to think about substance.
We shut the door through which the officials get War with their speeches with a lot of hyperbole, big words, jargon, etc thay say nothing.
We don’t let them get away with hollow statements and pro.ises.
We force them to not just think about issues, but think THOUGH the issues and contemplate all a route to solutions.
We don’t allow empty vessels to make too much nonsense.
We must not be too easily impressed. It’s no fun to be naive and gullible.
Editor: The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of talantang.com
