The prob­lem is that mem­bers of the pub­lic might have been so dis­tract­ed by the Pres­i­dent's rumshop ref­er­ence–a terse dis­missal of their ques­tions and con­cerns–that cru­cial as­pects of his state­ment might have been lost.

Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona's ref­er­ence to "rumshop log­ic" in de­scrib­ing cit­i­zens' com­ments about the lat­est fall­outs from the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion is un­for­tu­nate. Not on­ly did it de­feat what was an oth­er­wise laud­able at­tempt to bring clar­i­ty to an is­sue that has long been a fo­cus of na­tion­al con­cern and de­bate, it has al­so re­in­forced re­cent neg­a­tive per­cep­tions of that agency. The Pres­i­dent was well with­in his rights to deal with the mat­ter at length–he was, af­ter all the fo­cus of much of the crit­i­cisms fol­low­ing the lat­est im­plo­sion of that au­gust body. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, his choice of words and his con­de­scend­ing tone served to alien­ate rather then en­light­en.

The too-fre­quent erup­tion of con­tro­ver­sies with­in the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion in re­cent years is the very valid rea­son that its ef­fec­tive­ness and rel­e­vance are be­ing ques­tioned. That fact should not es­cape Pres­i­dent Car­mona, who has the cru­cial role of ap­point­ing mem­bers to that body. More than five weeks have passed since the res­ig­na­tions of re­tired Jus­tice Se­bas­t­ian Ven­tour, the for­mer deputy chair­man, and Dr Shel­ley-Anne Lalchan. Those res­ig­na­tions, close on the heels of a con­tro­ver­sial rul­ing from the Com­mis­sion in the Email­gate mat­ter, at­tract­ed con­sid­er­able and most­ly un­flat­ter­ing pub­lic scruti­ny of that agency, and there was a great deal of in­ter­est in Pres­i­dent Car­mona's next move in deal­ing with the mat­ter.

But apart from a very brief state­ment ac­knowl­edg­ing and ac­cept­ing the res­ig­na­tions of the two com­mis­sion­ers, the Pres­i­dent has been most­ly silent on the mat­ter. His si­lence was a fer­tile breed­ing ground for the spec­u­la­tion, crit­i­cisms and neg­a­tive state­ments, which ap­par­ent­ly prompt­ed his de­tailed state­ment on Wednes­day.

How­ev­er, it is good that he has fi­nal­ly spo­ken out and has done so at length on what was a very sig­nif­i­cant oc­ca­sion for the Com­mis­sion – two new mem­bers, act­ing High Court Judge Ra­jiv Per­sad and re­tired school prin­ci­pal An­gela Long Lai, tak­ing their oaths of of­fice.

The prob­lem is that mem­bers of the pub­lic might have been so dis­tract­ed by the Pres­i­dent's rumshop ref­er­ence–a terse dis­missal of their ques­tions and con­cerns–that cru­cial as­pects of his state­ment might have been lost. For ex­am­ple, there was the im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion that even when down to three mem­bers, the Com­mis­sion is valid­ly con­sti­tut­ed and can op­er­ate. It makes this lat­est is­sue dif­fer­ent from oc­ca­sions in the past when that body was non-func­tion­al for long stretch­es of time.

In re­sponse to the many calls for him to in­ter­vene when ques­tions were raised about the Com­mis­sion's han­dling to Email­gate, Pres­i­dent Car­mona un­der­scored that its func­tions are "sacro­sanct and not to be in­ter­fered with." He is not privy to the Com­mis­sion's de­ci­sion-mak­ing process and can­not in­ter­vene in any of de­ci­sions "le­git­i­mate­ly ar­rived at." All these are im­por­tant facts and it is good that Pres­i­dent Car­mona has put them in­to the pub­lic do­main.

At the same time, how­ev­er, he can­not over­look the fact that pub­lic con­fi­dence in the body has been se­vere­ly erod­ed. The pub­lic has a right to have its say, even if its mem­bers do not have the in­sight of Pres­i­dent Car­mona. Dis­miss­ing it as "rumshop log­ic" is un­for­tu­nate.

Time will tell whether his de­ci­sion to ap­point two new mem­bers ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress­es pub­lic con­cerns.

How­ev­er, giv­en the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion's man­date to stop cor­rup­tion and en­sure trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty from pub­lic of­fi­cials, Pres­i­dent Car­mona can­not ig­nore the need for a thor­ough ex­am­i­na­tion of that body's process­es, sys­tems and pro­ce­dures – through a va­ri­ety of lens­es.