A question of ethics and trust

Ethics has trumpeted the virtue of Mr. Ralph DLG Torres’ reflection to a recent situation highlighting a wrong committed by a high ranking appointed official in law enforcement who was trusted to enforce the laws, and serve and protect the people. Trusts expressed by Mr. Victor Hocog in a recent speech extolling the virtue of avoiding a wrong to newly deputized cadets entering our law enforcement jurisdictions surprised many of us like a deer caught in headlights. It seems that our politicians in the governor’s office are hedging the truth of ethics and trusts producing valuable yields from the principals invested for all CNMI people, and these are not flukes of our father and prince of our castle. Mr. Ralph Torres as the father of ethics and trusts, and Mr. Victor Hocog as the prince of trust and ethics, the foundation of our Commonwealth is a Castle built on trust and ethics. Hence, our father and prince must keep the trust and observe ethics so that their subjects follow by examples to enjoy what is right and dismiss what is wrong. If our father and prince of the castle see these principles as truth, then as a people our castle is secured, this then is not an illusion.  

It is a moral norm to refuse engaging in or supporting unethical vices, nurturing untrustworthy dealings held in secrecy and disregard to the transparency of the transactions that ignored a public policy’s intended purpose. If the father and prince of the governor’s office express a discourse that offend its subjects, we have a moral obligation to charge the public policy in that the public discourse enters into a public audit.  By “public audit” I am referring to a process of “hearing of accounts.” Audit comes from the Latin word, “audio” meaning to hear.

If morality of trust and ethics is the cornerstone of a good government in the father and prince of our Commonwealth, these principles did not trigger themselves by accident because the head of the Department of Public Safety committed an unethical act that wronged the CNMI people, and the trust could not stand as a ready made societal norm that the newly deputized cadets have yet to perfect in their line of duties. Mr. Ralph DLG Torres and Mr. Victor Hocog are subjects to ethics and trust principles as elected officials before they robbed the will of the CNMI people before they assumed their illegitimate take over of power of the governor’s office. They violated the mandate of Article III, Section 7 of the CNMI Constitution. Was there trust or ethics when these politicians in the governor’s office joined the elected AG’s false and irresponsible opinion that gave them a right to take over the power of the governor of this Commonwealth? Is this what Mr. Ralph DLG Torres was referring as “trial and error” governing? In the old days, thieves robbed by the cover of darkness. In our government today, thieves thrive as robbers by the stroke of a pen.

In John: 16-13, we are reminded, “…the spirit of the truth, he will guide you to all truth.” Is trust to Victor Hocog and ethics to Ralph Torres speak of the truth?  Or, is this their way of rhetoric of liar and lying?

No one argues that four for $10, two for $5 are different, but by moral norms of ethics and trust is the same. Did the elected AG and the politicians in the Governor’s Office frame the question to favor their actions when Article III, Section 7 of the CNMI Constitution crossed their ethics and trust moments? So, what ethics and trust did Mr. Ralph Torres and Mr. Victor Hocog apply before robbing the CNMI people of their will under Article III, Section 7 of the CNMI Constitution?

Francisco R. Agulto
Kanat Tabla