A Boholano philosopher speaks: Bending the Law or Betraying Justice? Ricoeur’s Practical Wisdom and Political Discretion in the Philippines
Bending the Law or Betraying Justice? Ricoeur’s Practical Wisdom and Political Discretion in the Philippines
By Francis Jeus Ibañez
It is easy to invoke justice when people are angry. It is much harder to determine what justice actually requires. In the Philippines, where allegations of corruption involving flood-control projects have intensified public frustration, the demand to recover allegedly misappropriated public funds is understandable. People want their money returned. They want those responsible held accountable. Above all, they want to believe that the law still means something in a society where political power can appear to protect those who possess it.
But what happens when public officials argue that the law must be bent to achieve these demands? Can justice justify an exception to the law, or does the decision to make an exception risk undermining justice itself?
This is not merely a question of legal interpretation. It is a question about political power and the moral limits of discretion. When officials claim that the demands of the people require them to bend the law, they must explain why their proposed action is justified and who will be held accountable for the consequences. Otherwise, the language of justice may become a convenient justification for decisions that would be difficult to defend under ordinary legal standards.
The problem is not that the law must always be applied without regard for circumstances. Human situations are complex, and the strict application of a general rule may sometimes fail to address the particular demands of a case. Yet the recognition of this difficulty does not mean that officials may disregard the law whenever they believe that doing so will produce a desirable result. The question is whether an exception can be justified without compromising the very principles that make justice possible.
Paul Ricoeur offers a useful way of thinking about this problem. His philosophy recognizes that ethical life involves more than following rules mechanically. Human beings must make judgments in situations where obligations may conflict and where the consequences of a decision cannot always be determined in advance. Practical wisdom, or phronesis, becomes important precisely because moral judgment requires attention to particular circumstances.
For Ricoeur, however, ethical life cannot be separated from our responsibility toward others or from the institutions through which we live together. The good life is not simply a matter of personal intention. It must also be pursued with and for others within just institutions. This is important because political decisions affect not only the individuals immediately involved but also the wider community whose rights and interests public institutions are supposed to protect.
Practical wisdom, therefore, should not be understood as permission to do whatever an official considers necessary. It demands judgment, but judgment must remain accountable. It requires us to consider the particular situation without forgetting the principles that govern our common life. An official cannot simply declare an exception justified because the public wants a particular outcome. The justification must be examined, and the decision must remain answerable to those who will bear its consequences.
The controversy surrounding the recovery of allegedly misappropriated funds from flood-control projects brings this difficulty into view. The public has every reason to demand that money intended to protect communities from flooding be accounted for. Such projects are not merely entries in a government budget. They concern the safety of families, the protection of homes, and the welfare of communities exposed to flooding. When public resources intended for these purposes are allegedly diverted, the issue is not only financial loss. It is also a question of public trust and responsibility.
Yet the demand for restitution raises questions that must not be confused with one another. There is a difference between encouraging individuals to return money they allegedly acquired improperly, establishing lawful mechanisms for recovering public funds, and making restitution a condition for admission to a witness-protection program or recognition as a state witness. These actions may be connected by the public demand for accountability, but they do not automatically have the same legal basis.
This distinction matters because public anger, however justified, cannot by itself determine what the law permits. A demand may be morally compelling without granting officials the authority to impose whatever conditions they consider appropriate. If a particular condition is to be introduced, its legal basis must be established. If the law already permits discretion, that discretion must be exercised according to its purpose and limits.
The danger begins when the urgency of a moral demand is treated as sufficient justification for setting aside these questions. In that situation, political discretion may cease to be a means of responding responsibly to difficult circumstances. It may become a way of deciding which rules deserve to be followed and which persons may be excused from them.
This is where we must distinguish a justified exception from what I call a betrayal of justice. The expression does not mean that every departure from a general rule is necessarily unjust. Rather, it identifies the danger of invoking justice to defend a decision that weakens accountability, compromises equal treatment, or grants certain individuals privileges that others cannot reasonably expect to receive.
An exception may be justified when it is authorized, supported by defensible reasons, and consistent with the principles it is meant to serve. But an exception becomes morally troubling when the power to make it is treated as sufficient justification for making it. The fact that an official possesses political authority does not establish that every exercise of that authority is just. Nor does the popularity of a decision prove its legitimacy.
The distinction is especially important in a society where allegations of corruption have damaged public confidence in government. People are right to question whether public officials apply the law equally. If ordinary citizens are expected to comply with legal requirements while politically influential individuals receive special consideration, the appeal to justice becomes difficult to sustain. What is presented as a necessary exception may instead reproduce the very inequality that public officials claim to oppose.
We must therefore ask a difficult question: who benefits when the law is bent, and who bears the consequences?
This question directs our attention beyond the immediate result of a political decision. Recovering public money may be a legitimate objective, but the desirability of that objective does not settle whether every means of achieving it is acceptable. A decision must also be assessed in terms of the authority behind it, the procedures through which it is made, and the standards it establishes for future cases.
Suppose an exception produces an immediate benefit but establishes a precedent through which powerful individuals can negotiate their own terms of accountability. Would that exception still serve justice? Or would it weaken the institutions that are supposed to prevent political privilege? The problem is not simply whether the government recovers money. It is whether the means used to recover it strengthen or undermine the equal application of public rules.
Ricoeur’s emphasis on just institutions helps us understand why this matters. Justice cannot depend entirely on the intentions of individual officials. Even a well-intentioned decision may have consequences that exceed the intentions of the person who makes it. Public institutions must therefore provide ways to examine, justify, and challenge the exercise of authority. Without such accountability, practical judgment can become indistinguishable from personal discretion.
This does not mean that the law should be applied mechanically in every situation. Such an approach would ignore the very complexity that makes practical wisdom necessary. Rules may require interpretation, and particular circumstances may call for judgments that cannot be settled by simply repeating a general principle. But acknowledging the limits of mechanical rule-following does not require us to accept unrestricted political discretion.
The real challenge is to determine how judgment can respond to particular circumstances without becoming arbitrary. An official must be able to explain why an exception is necessary, why it is legally permissible, and why it does not undermine the principles of accountability and equal treatment. The decision must be open to scrutiny rather than protected by the claim that it serves a higher purpose.
Justice, in this sense, is not merely about obtaining a desirable result. It is also about how that result is pursued and whether the process respects those who are affected by it. The recovery of public funds cannot be separated from the responsibility to maintain public trust. Nor can the demand for accountability be separated from the requirement that public authority itself remain accountable.
The Philippine controversy thus reveals a problem that extends beyond flood-control projects or the recovery of allegedly misappropriated money. It concerns the conditions under which political officials may claim the authority to make exceptions in the name of the public good. Whenever such a claim is made, citizens have reason to ask whether the exception is legally grounded, whether its justification can withstand public scrutiny, and whether the same standard would apply to someone without political influence.
These questions are not obstacles to justice. They are part of what makes a claim to justice credible.
The temptation to bend the law often arises from impatience with institutions that appear slow, ineffective, or incapable of delivering accountability. That frustration should not be dismissed. But neither should it become a reason to abandon the very standards by which public power is restrained. If the law is inadequate, it must be addressed through legitimate legal and institutional processes. If discretion is permitted, it must be exercised responsibly. And if an exception is necessary, those who authorize it must be prepared to explain why it does not become a privilege.
The question, then, is not whether justice sometimes requires us to look beyond the mechanical application of rules. It does. The question is whether those who claim to act in the name of justice are willing to submit their own decisions to the demands of accountability, legality, and equality.
Ricoeur’s practical wisdom reminds us that ethical judgment must attend to the particularities of human situations. His concern for just institutions also reminds us that no individual’s judgment can stand entirely apart from the demands of our common life. Political discretion may be necessary, but it must never become a substitute for justification.
In the end, the law cannot be defended merely because it is the law, and an exception cannot be defended merely because it promises justice. Both must be examined in light of the human good they are supposed to serve and the institutions through which public responsibility is exercised.
An appeal to justice cannot justify an exception unless the exception itself remains answerable to justice. Otherwise, those who claim to bend the law for the people may end up placing themselves above the very standards by which the people seek to be protected.
