Republic of the Philippines

Technological University of the Philippines

College of Industrial Education
Graduate Program

LYNDY G. PANTAO
Program: Ed.D. - IEM
Course: MM 517 Public Administration
Professor: ROMEO S. EBONITE, Ed.D.
Semester: Second Semester
School Year: 2019-2020

Insight Paper No. 7

Honor, Ethics, and Accountability

The Origins and Nature of Honor

Our modern concepts of honor have their origins in ancient Greece and Rome.
The classic example of honorable public service was Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the
Roman patrician who has become the symbol of republican virtue and personal
integrity. In 458 BC, when Rome was threatened with military defeat, Cincinnatus, a
farmer, was appointed dictator by the Senate to deal with the emergency. Legend has it
that he literally abandoned his plow in midfield to take command. Within 16 days he
defeated the enemy, resigned from the dictatorship, and returned to his plow.
The story of Cincinnati tells us that we should not aspire for power. If we are
called on to serve, then we should give it all our best. Whatever we do, once we are
called on to serve must give it our all. We should not lust for political power because
public service is serving the interests of the public and not our own personal interests.
But nowadays, I noticed that politicians turn public service into milking cows. They
usually target to be reelected.
Being in the public service should be an honor for everyone. It is not that
everyone is given a chance to be in the public service. Once a person is the public
service, he or she must uphold being honourable just like Cincinnati.
We are all honourable men and women. Since childhood we are taught by our
culture with the concepts of honor. Much of our sense of honor comes from observing
the actions of family and neighbors. The rest comes from the media. For example, many
people learn their lessons of honor from movies.

Corruption in Government
When a public official misuses his or her office for self-gain, then the rule of law
no longer prevails, and there is, in effect, a return to tyranny. By engaging in such self-
aggrandizement, corrupt representatives of the people illegally put themselves above
the law. Furthermore, corruption also undermines economic rights. Corruption gives one
an undue advantage over others of the goods and services that should be open to all.
1. Bribery
When contracts are awarded illegally by means of bribes, the losing competitors
can be said to have had their rights to a fair and impartial bidding process abridged. The
public’s right to have purchases made in the most efficient and least costly fashion is
also subverted.
Bribery is not good in such a way that it removes the fairness of the competition.
It is bad in all angles.
2. Watergate
A society’s humor is a good indicator of its political corruption. Comedians do not
lead public opinion, but they certainly reflect it. One can feel the pulse of the public
through the jokes of the people.

Hierarchy of Ethics
When conflicts arise, most individuals invoke a hierarchy of role obligation that
gives some roles precedence over others. Real life is not always so unambiguous,
however, and role conflict is a common dilemma in the world of work.
The “Nuremberg defense” is the often-used excuse of those caught performing
illegal acts for their political or military superiors: “I was only following orders.” The term
and the tactic come from war crimes trials in Nuremberg, Germany, of top Nazi leaders
in the aftermath of World War II.
The Four Levels of Ethics
In public administration there is a hierarchy of levels of ethics, each of which has
its own set of responsibilities.
1. First, there is personal morality—the basic sense of right and wrong. This is a
function of our past and is dependent on factors such as parental influences, religious
beliefs, cultural and social mores, and one’s own personal experiences.
2. Second in the hierarchy is professional ethics. Public administrators increasingly
recognize a set of professional norms and rules that obligate them to act in certain
“professional” ways.
3. A third level of ethics is organizational. Every organization has an environment or
culture that includes both formal and informal rules of ethical conduct. Public
organizations typically have many such rules.
4. Finally, there are social ethics. The requirements of social ethics oblige members of a
given society to act in ways that both protect individuals and further the progress of the
group as a whole. Social ethics are formal to the extent that they can be found in the
laws of a given society, informal to the extent that they are part of an individual’s social
conscience.
I learned that ethics starts from a person. A person in order to understand social
ethics must know the basic that is distinguishing right from wrong. Once the person has
a solid foundation of personal morality, he or she will be able to cope up the standards
set by the environment surrounding him or her. The four levels of ethics shows us the
step by step of ethics.

Code of Conduct and Ethics

Codes of honor have their origins in ancient precepts about how a person should
behave in the face of danger, when confronted with temptation, or before authority
figures. Much of what are still considered important elements of honourable behavior is
contained in the Bible’s Ten Commandments. Thus it is still honourable behavior not to
kill, steal, bear false witness, nor covet thy neighbor’s wife
Many civilian government agencies now have standards of conduct, formal
guidelines, for ethical behavior. Their objective is to ensure that employees refrain from
using their official positions for private gain. Typically, a variety of prohibited activities
seek to ensure that employees conduct themselves in a manner that would not offer the
slightest suggestion that they will extract private advantage from public employment. All
too frequently, standards of conduct are used to say the obvious.
While standards of conduct are always related to a specific organization, codes
of ethics are wide in scope and encompass a whole profession or occupational
category. A code of ethics is a statement of professional standards of conduct to which
the practitioners of a profession say they subscribe.

The Challenge of Accountability

Accountability is the extent to which one must answer to higher authority—legal
or organizational—for one’s actions in society at large, or within one’s particular
organizational position. Elected public officials are theoretically accountable to the
political sovereignty of the voters. In this sense, appointed officials—from file clerks to
cabinet secretaries—are less accountable than elected officials. The former are
accountable mainly to their organizational supervisors, while the latter must answer to
the people of their jurisdiction.
Administrative accountability is that aspect of administrative responsibility by
which officials are held answerable for general notions of democracy and morality as
well as for specific legal mandates.
As public administrators, it should be clear to us to whom we are accountable
when we perform our public duties. Keeping in mind these things will help us remember
that when we are in the public service, it is the interest of the public that we are serving
and not just the interest of the few.