Crying wolf

Lately, there have been a lot of cries about corruption but in all cases it was “after the fact,” so we can’t even call these people whistleblowers. The recent claims by a former DPS commissioner about corruption at DPS after being convicted, the corruption alleged by a man against the late Northern Island mayor after being caught and convicted and, more recently, the former Labor secretary is now alleging corruption after losing her job. I am not saying that corruption did or did not exist but if these people knew about the corruption, why did they wait before speaking up? I’m sure most people can deduce that all these people are just sour grapes—condoning and even supporting the alleged corrupt behavior if it’s true as long as they could benefit.

I don’t have anything against these people and, in fact, I viewed two of them as my friend but it is really sad they told on themselves, condoning what they may have viewed as corruption by not speaking up when it was taking place but now they are trying to reap vengeance to get back at the powers-that-be due to their predicament. If these allegations of corruption had been brought forth before they got in trouble or lost their job, they would have surely been considered whistleblowers but that was not the case, making everything they say suspicious and even unbelievable.

There have even been cries that almost everyone on the Hill is corrupt, which is really ridiculous. Didn’t we just make the point that no governor or AG is above the law by convicting a governor and even electing an “independent AG” to reassure that no politician would have influence over the AG? First of all, everyone will never be happy with a legal decision, be it the AG, a judge, or jury. There will always be someone on the opposing side to complain. But it is not right nor fair to imply corruption just because you didn’t like the legal decision. Furthermore, I know for a fact after years of being a fellow member of Santa Soledad with the AG and knowing him before he was an AG that he is a man of unquestionable integrity. So to a large degree, all these cries of corruption are really nothing more than a phony wolf cry that needs to stop. It is easy to accuse someone of wrong but proving it is totally another story—just ask any prosecutor. As for those crying corruption, they need to do it when the wolf is doing corrupting acts, not after he is gone.

We must first learn to trust the system to do its job and we must be cautious in our support for special interest groups and people who often “cry wolf” who just want to attract negative or adverse attention. I do respect all opinions, which is why this was not focused on the names or any single individual so I hope no one will take this personally. These people who are crying wolf after the fact are clearly not true whistleblowers as they would have us to believe. A true whistleblower would have exposed these alleged acts of corruption when they were happening, not after the fact. I am also not against any of these people crying corruption. I just think the whole truth needs to be exposed before and not after the fact.

Ambrose M. Bennett
Kagman, Saipan