Life Skill: Personal Code of Conduct

 A. Salces Cajes, PhD

Also known as the moral code, code of honor, ten commandments or decalogue, the personal code of conduct states the ethical norms that guide you in deciding which decision or action is right or wrong. Such ethical norms represent the standards or ideals that you set for yourself. 

Your code serves as the terms of reference for your conscience when it makes an evaluation about the rightness or wrongness of an action, decision or behavior. If your code is consistent with your credo and values, then you gain confidence in the quality of your choices and actions.

Since your code represents the most sacred character of your being, it has a normative function --it regulates your conduct. In case you  violate your code, your conscience can trigger you to stop, repent or take a positive or affirmative action. It tells you to say sorry or repay an injury that has been done.

If there is such thing as honor among thieves, the right thing to do is for good men and women to have a superior set of moral compass to make this world or our communities, organizations, and homes better places to live in. 

Some examples of a code of conduct include the following:

• I shall abide by the principle of beneficence or ahimsa by doing good and avoiding evil;
• I shall protect my personal integrity at all times;
• I shall observe zero tolerance to corruption;
• I  shall treat and respect other people as my kapwa.

The True Decalogue by Apolinario Mabini is good source of a code of conduct:

First. Love God and your honor over all things: God, as the source of all truth, all justice and all activity; your honor, the only power that obliges you to be truthful, just and industrious.

Second. Worship God in the form that your conscience that God speaks to you, reproaching you for your misdeeds and applauding you for your good deeds.

Third. Develop the special talents that God has given you, working and studying according to your capabilities, never straying from the path of good and justice, in order to achieve your own perfection, and by this means you will contribute to the progress of humanity: thus you will accomplish the mission that God himself has given you in this life, and achieving this, you will have honor, and having honor, you will be glorifying God.

Fourth. Love your country after God and your honor, and more than you love yourself, because your country is the only paradise that God has given you in this life; the only patrimony of your race; the only inheritance from your ancestors; and the only future of your descendants: because of your country you have life, love and interests; happiness, honor and God.

Fifth. Strive for the happiness of your country before your own, making her the reigning influence for reason, justice and work; if your country is happy, you and your family will also be happy.

Sixth. Strive for the independence of your country, because you alone can have a real interest in her aggrandizement and ennoblement, since here independence will mean your own freedom, her aggrandizement your own perfection, and her ennoblement your own glory and immortality.

Seventh. In your country, do not recognize the authority of any person who has not been elected by you and your compatriots, because all authority comes from God, and as God speaks to the conscience of each individual, the person chosen and proclaimed by the consciences of all the individuals of a whole town is the only one that can exercise real authority.

Eighth. Strive that your country be constituted as a republic, and never as a monarchy: a monarchy empowers one or several families and lays the foundation for a dynasty; a republic ennobles and dignifies a country based on reason, it is great because of its freedom, and is made prosperous and brilliant by dint of work.

Ninth. Love your neighbor as you love yourself, because God has imposed on him and on you the obligation to help one another, and has dictated that he does not do unto you what he does not want you to do unto him; but if your neighbor is remiss in this sacred duty and makes an attempt on your life, your freedom and your priorities, then you should destroy him and crush him, because the supreme law of self preservation must prevail.

Tenth. Always look on your countryman as more than a neighbor: you will find in him a friend, a brother and at least the companion to whom you are tied by only one destiny, by the same happiness and sorrows, and by the same aspirations and interests.

Because of this, while the borders of the nations established and preserved by the egoism of race and of family remain standing, you must remain united to your country in perfect solidarity of views and interests in order to gain strength, not only to combat the common enemy, but also to achieve all the objectives of human life. (http://malacanang.gov.ph/8132-the-true-decalogue-by-apolinario-mabini/)