“When a high public official takes resignation as an option, especially in the case of Tourism Undersecretary Vicente Romano II, there cannot be any kind of automatic construal of gross wrongdoing”, Rep. Winston “Winnie” Castelo says in a statement.
The Quezon City solon thinks that this kind of judgment by a public official as demonstrated by U/Sec. Romano has raised the level of decency, propriety, and accountability that any public official in the upper ladder of the bureaucracy should bear to mind. “Romano has shown a sense of accountability in taking full responsibility for a tourism campaign project that attracted much negative public criticism”, Castelo points out.
“Let this example of a public official be the benchmark for those who may be similarly situated if only to bring back that lost dignity that every worker or servant in government should exhibit when they are given the opportunity for public service”, the QC solon strongly argues.
According to Castelo, “it is not every day that we come across someone in the bureaucracy who can own up to his lapse of judgment, to an act of negligence or imprudence, and most especially, even come out in public to make the formal apologies”.
“In fact, with his deed, Romano has just led the road to what our beloved P-Noy calls the road to righteousness. This must be the road that the good undersecretary chose to tread amidst attacks or criticisms of having plagiarized a tourism campaign brand found to have been largely copied from another European country”, Castelo quips.
“By his resignation, it shall draw to close all the negative criticisms that must have been hailed against it”, Castelo finally points out. This honorable act opted by the tourism point man should now serve as moral beacon to be followed by all bureaucrats in the whole officialdom as they stir the ship of state, according to Castelo.
It is hoped that other public officials will share this kind of sensitivity as our new benchmark in public service. Thus, for Castelo, if one commits a major misjudgment in the course of public service, he must be man enough to take a bow and a graceful exit for such apparent failure. 30
