THE FOURTH POWER AND THE CORRUPTION
Coamo, October 15, 2008. In my opinion corruption is everywhere in Puerto Rico therefore it is in the three branches of the Government and the fourth power has the responsibility to fight corruption and that power is the Press.
A journalist has the responsibility to denounce the corruption. The journalist who has knowledge of some corruption and does not report to the Medias is an accomplice of corruption.
To have corruption you must have an economic necessity or a necessity of power, in other words a person has a necessity and another person has the solution of that necessity. The corruption begins when the corrupt person feels like untouchable. The act of corruption begins with something simple and they see the fruit of that result. Later they continue with new acts of corruption until they commit errors and the justice system or divine justice catches with them.
The corruptor’s sale their principles if they have any at all and even if there is the necessity the corruptor’s sale their family. The corrupt ones do not have loyalty, only they have loyalty towards themselves. Some times have a profile of good citizens, they go all Sundays to the church and criticize other persons way they are not religious and a good family man. But in fact the corrupt ones are poor in spirit and they do not have moral values.
In my opinion the governmental corruption always has existed during the times, but has been detected more in these times by the fourth power because of the electronic age of communications.
The fourth power is the institution that causes the fiscal authorities of the government go towards the corrupt ones and avoids that the results of an investigation remain in the forgetfulness of government. When honest citizens and honest public servants cannot denounce the corruption by institutional means of the government, the fourth power is the means that they must denounce corruption.
In summary to eliminate corruption in these times the fourth power must continue his task to denounce corruption and supervise the three branches of government. If the fourth power did not exist, I do not want to imagine how this supposedly democratic country will be. When the people no longer trust the institutional powers, the press has a responsibility to report any act of injustice and corruption.
By Ramon Luis Vazquez of Noticiasillescanos.com
