MANILA, Philippines -- Bring honesty back to business and government, and we would be doing away with a lot of scams and scandals.

This, according to Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno in a speech Friday night before businessmen, is the "moral force" that will “redirect our path as a people back to higher grounds.”

“Here at home we also see the ugly side of private business....You name it, and we have it,” Puno said.

“If I stress how private business has crossed the prohibited red line here and elsewhere, it is to underscore that business decisions have their moral cost and that cost is often borne by the poor people.”

Puno cited the “ugly side of business” -- for example, the collapsed Legacy Group and its estimated P1.1 billion unpaid obligations to some 50,000 plan holders, among them street vendors, overseas workers and lowly government employees.

The Legacy Group is the latest financial scam being investigated by the Senate. Also facing inquiry are the alleged rigged bidding for World Bank-funded road projects, anomalous purchases of fertilizer in 2004, and the alleged overpricing of a telecommunications contract.

Puno, who has launched a "moral force movement" to fight corruption, was the guest speaker of the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International dinner-fellowship at the Valle Verde Country Club in Pasig City.

Last year, several groups asked Puno to run for president in the 2010 presidential elections but he declined, saying he would rather spend his time after retirement from the high court with his grandchildren.

Asked again if he would change his mind about the presidency, Puno just laughed.

“There is a responsibility of business not only to be engaged in profit-making for its stockholders but also to promote the general welfare of the people,” Puno continued.

“In good times, profits go to [the] private pockets of the rich people, but in bad times, it is the people's money that is used by government to save their [rich people] skin. The worse tragedy is that government has to cut down spending on education and overall welfare of the poor people because its money has been used to assist the profligate rich,” he added.

But a businessman who has Christian values, he said, “will not commit immoral acts because these are anti-poor,” Puno said.

He said both the political and business sectors need to strengthen their moral fabric to promote honesty, credibility and fairness.

“There is much to be desired....It is a problem that all of us should confront. They should put God in politics,” Puno said.

Another speaker, retired colonel Hector Tarrazona, an original member of the Reform the AFP Movement (RAM), called on communist insurgents to “discard” their ideology. He said Christianity was the “antidote” to communism.

Tarrazona also disputed a common belief that the series of military coup attempts to unseat former president Corazon Aquino from 1986 to 1992 were mere power grabs.

“Many were made to believe that they were all purely power grab attempts, but the coups that almost toppled the government of President Aquino were caused mainly by the soldiers’ feelings of betrayal,” Tarrazona said.

According to him, the soldiers felt betrayed when Aquino ordered the release of Jose Ma. Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines whose military arm, the New People's Army, has been engaged in a protracted war with the government since 1969.