BEJARIN, Joanne Camille P.

Dr. Edwin S. Martin

4POL1

September 23, 2016

The Dilemma of a Public Official

I. Synopsis
The article Judging the Private Lives of Public Officials written by J. Patrick Dobel in
1998 aims to present the two legitimate moral claims which cause the dilemma experienced by
public officials concerning their private lives. First, that all individuals, not excluding public
officials, are entitled to privacy. Second, that all citizens and principals also have the right to
information about the persons they have appointed and elected as public officials. Dobel (1998)
emphasizes that the problem is how to determine where to draw the line.
Dobel states that public officials, albeit their profession, are entitled to privacy
nonetheless. Dobel says that Privacy protects a range of domains covering ones body,
thoughts, emotions, religion, relations of intimacy and friendship, property rights, or personal
associations, (Dobel, 1998). Public officials are no exception to this. The moral assumption is
that respect for ones privacy must be mutual, as privacy has an intimate connection to freedom
and personal autonomy (Dobel, 1998). A realm of privacy serves as a haven where public
officials may retreat to when the demands of public life get too much. According to Rubenfield
(as cited in Dobel, 1998), privacy is an antidote to the incursions of socialized power into ones
psyche and physical world. However this is an ideal state of things that people respect other
people as much as they want to be respected themselves.
A public official needs a private realm for it enables them to keep intimate relations
thriving and abundant (Dobel, 1998). It is a retreat which provides them with new insight,
energy, and resilience. It is where trust and confidence thrive which enables an individual to
withhold or reveal (Dobel 1998, p.117) parts of his or her self to certain people. Through this,

ones personal life becomes colorful because of the control and the vast types and levels of
relationships he has. This is exactly why, according to Patterson as (cited in Dobel, 1998),
slavery is the opposite of privacy, as in this condition, the individual has no control of his body,
actions, and creations.
On the other hand, the citizens and principals also have the legitimate right of inquiry
into the lives of their chosen public officials (Dobel, 1998). The issues of competence and
capability is what primarily drives this inquiry (Dobel, 1998). As the prime beneficiaries of the
services, they are entitled to make sure that these public officials adhere to their sworn oath of
office and are impartial in making decisions, above all things. Personal biases and prejudices
arising from an individuals private life may affect his public service, and thereby the people.
With this being said, Dobel stated that the structure of the office should be the basis as to just
how much information a principal is entitled to know about a public official (Dobel, 1998). The
structure of the office presupposes concerns for individuals which include accountability,
delegation, honesty and promise-keeping, coercion and power over others, use of public
resources, and symbolic and ritual responsibilities, (Dobel, 1998, p.121). However, legal and
moral delegations set the boundaries and limits on the rights of citizens to obtain relevant
information. It is safe to say that the level of responsibility and power is equally proportionate to
the level of public scrutiny.
Public servants should rightly be judged solely on the basis of what is germane to their
performance (Dobel, 1998). Anything beyond shall be disregarded given that it does not affect
the quality of service that an official is expected to provide. To deliver what is expected, a public
official shall have personal integrity (Dobel 1998, p.120), or the ability to live up to their
commitments all the while balancing their multiple roles that may otherwise create tension. With
this being said, when the power vested in a person by the people is used for private reasons, it

strains the moral capacities (Dobel, 1998, p.122) of the individual thereby giving the principals
every right to investigate.
The article states that the intensified focus on private life is rooted in several reasons
(Dobel, 1998). First, the limited libel claims an individual may make when they assume public
office. Second, the decline of political parties which thereby made politics more person-focused.
Third, the prevalence of the usage of private scandals by candidates to disrepute their
opponents. Lastly, the question posed by feminists on the validity of the distinction between
private and public lives (Dobel, 1998). The effect of such focus has affected civic life in several
harmful ways (Dobel, 1998). First, the reputation and image of certain members of the populace
are affected as they are dragged into the issues. Second, the quality of life of a public servant
has declined and in turn has discouraged people from entering the field. Third, private matters
often distract the principals from more important issues. Lastly, many citizens are denied the
chance to serve because of controversies (Dobel, 1998).
Dobel concludes by providing two standards of judgment that the citizens should follow
in assessing a public servant (Dobel, 1998). First, one must ask if the information provided is
germane to the performance of the official. Second, in the event that the information is proven to
be relevant, one must ask how it should be considered in judging the performance of the public
official. He also speaks of several aspects which should be considered in conducting the
inquiries such as the consistency, health, economic relations, and the context and personal
history of the official, among other things (Dobel, 1998). According to Dobel, although privacy
has many positive aspects, there is a dangerous downside to too much privacy, being that it
may hide harm and oppresion (Dobel 1998). Though the information may not directly affect an
officials perfomance, it would give people a hint as to who he really is as a person as opposed
to the persona he shows (Dobel, 1998).
II. Reflection

The article put prime on the idea that being in public office increases the propensity of
ones private life of being exposed no matter which angle one looks at (Dobel, 1998). Getting a
carreer in public office means eventually declaring the accounts of your past when the people
demand it. On the other hand, it also states that there must be certain limitations to such
demands. However, it is evident that the legal means that public officials have against
slanderous and malicious accusations are limited, for they are bound by law to serve the
interest of the people (Dobel, 1998). Dobel has made not only valid points regarding the matter,
but also relevant claims which may be applied to the present circumstances of public officials in
our country.
For one, Dobel claims that one of the reason as to why there is an intensified focus on
the private lives of public figures is that candidates and interest groups exploit the new media
standards and use private scandals to discredit competitors and their positions, (Dobel, 1998,
p. 116). Dobel also mentioned that the higher the position and amount of power, the more
legitimate broad public scrutiny will be, (Dobel, 1998, p. 121). The recent Philippine Elections
has proven both of these claims to be true. For every presidential candidate, a controversy was
available for the scrutiny of the public. Take for example then presidentiable Rodrigo Duterte.
His alleged involvement with the Davao Death Squad caused uproar, especially among human
rights activists (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2016). For Miriam Santiago, her health issues became
a strong justification of why people declined to vote for her (Elemia, 2015). Propaganda about
Jejomar Binays corruption cases became more prominent, led primarily by vice presidential
candidate Antonio Trillanes IV (Romero, 2016). Mar Roxas pronounced efforts to paint himself
as one of the masa has earned him more bad reputation than good (Ramos, 2016). The debate
about Senator Grace Poes dual-citizenship has kept her supporters on their feet (Mosqueda,
2015). These issues existed well before the official electoral campaign period began, but
because of the position these candidates are vying for, aspects of their personal lives as well as

lesser-known issues of their political carreers resurfaced, were blown out of proportion, and
became part of the discussion of the general public.
Dobel concluded that one negative effect of a person-focused politics is that it often
detracts from serious and trivializes concerns over competence and policy, (Dobel, 1998, p.
128.). A timely example would be how the incumbent president Rodrigo Duterte exposed
Senator Leila de Limas supposed affair with her driver, linking it to drug pushing, where he was
quoted to have said that he had no choice but to expose her (GMA News, 2016). However, it
should be noted that before Senator De Lima questioned the extrajudicial killings in Dutertes
campaign against drugs, there was no such accusation. The mudslinging came with the
powerplay. Senator De Limas intimate affairs ended up engulfing the attention of the populace
away from the much more important issue of extrajudicial killings and drug related concerns.
Her professional and political carreer has been disregarded as a topic in everyday
conversations in favor of a trivial matter which was supposed to be private in the first place-all
because of politics.
In the article, Dobel mentioned that some private actions can subvert an officials ability
to live up to the symbolic dimensions of an office, (Dobel, 1998, p.135) As an example, the
case of Ambassador Lauro Baja is fitting. Ambassador Lauro L. Baja was the Permanent
Representative to the United Nations for the Republic of the Philippines (United Nations
Security Council, 2004) and the former Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs (Torrevillas, 2006).
President Gloria Arroyo awarded him with the Order of Sikatuna with the rank of Datu, the
highest award a member a Foreign Service Officer of the Philippines may receive (Torrevillas,
2006). However, his carreer in foreign service was damaged by a civil suit filed by his former
housemaid Marichu Suarez Baoanan (GMA News, 2008). Baoanan claimed that the whole Baja
family was involved in trafficking and forced labor. Quoting the Philippine Foreign Service Act of
1991, one of the three pillars of Philippine Foreign Policy is the Protection of the rights and

promotion of the welfare and interest of Filipinos overseas, (Department of Foreign Affairs,
1991). With this being said, an allegation of human trafficking is one of the worst issues an
individual whose carreer revolves around foreign service may face. Furthermore, one symbolic
dimension of his position as the Undersecretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs was
violated. Given that this incident may not be a rightful basis to judge his competence, it is
undeniable that his legitimacy and credibility as a carreer service professional is now
debateable.
Dobel states that any private information, no matter how trivial or interesting, shall be
disregarded as long as it does not affect the quality of service that a public official is expected to
provide (Dobel, 1998). However, a principal or citizen has every right to question a public
servants personal beliefs when it might possibly affect his or her future decisions. Dobel also
suggests that a principal take note of the consistency of a public official in his decisions (Dobel,
1998). For both claims, Senator Pacquiao makes for a good example. Senator Manny Pacquiao
justifies his statements using his faith. Last February, he cited the scriptures to justify his
unsolicited comment about same sex marriage which angered the LGBT community (Rappler,
2016). In his first ever privilege speech, he said that God is for death penalty (Elemia, 2016).
Not only are his decisions clouded by his predjudices, but it is also worth pointing out that he
uses the bible inconsistently-as in the case of his death penalty comment compared to the sixth
commandment. In addition to this, a senator is a servant of the public and not of his private
interests. Considering his propensity to use his own personal beliefs to justify his statements,
there is a need for the public to make sure that he would be rational and fair.
The aforementioned examples about public officials in the Philippines prove that it is
indeed true that the line between the private life and public office is so easily blurred. Problems
emanating from ones personal predjudices, beliefs, and experiences, may spillover towards his
performance as a public official. It is also worth noting that considerations from ones private life,

being the primary environment where a public official starts to develop his identity, are hard to
separate when making decisions demanded by his office. With this, Dobel was right in saying
that We should judge with mercy, and that redemption should exist in both political and private
lives (Dobel, 1998, p.137).
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