‘We must support efforts to improve our education system, particularly critical thinking. An ignorant, docile, unthinking population will only benefit the corrupt.’
IF I were teaching a class on Development Finance or some similar project, I would ask my students to propose a supplementary budget for the P1 trillion that we want to recover from corruption. I would be thrilled to find out how much they thought that amount could accomplish. Expecting optimism, I would like them to envision further what a P6.3-trillion 2025 budget could get us, if there were no corruption.
In reality, one could no longer turn a blind eye and pretend that corruption does not exist. This season of cloudbursts, hyper-localized flooding and super typhoons made sure we noticed — a seemingly innocuous TV interview with a public works contractor showing off dozens of luxury vehicles, one of which she bought for P42 million on a whim because she liked the built-in umbrella feature. Then, we have government engineers, contractors, and legislators of both species pointing fingers at each other.
This recent development focuses on one theater of corruption: public works, specifically flood control projects that were described as overpriced, substandard, or non-existent. But anybody who has lived long enough in the Philippines will know that corruption is well entrenched in all levels and all branches of government. So much so that we have adopted expressions like SOP (“standard operating procedure”), cost of doing business, and “for the boys” to describe the pay-offs given to, if not demanded by, public officials for a wide variety of transactions. Observable evidence is often difficult to produce because the practice has achieved a level of sophistication. Corruption is like the air — you can’t see it but you know it’s there. But corruption is oxygen only to those in power, and poison to the rest of us.
If you need an “official” definition of corruption, consider this: “behavior which deviates from the formal duties of a public role because of private-regarding (personal, close family, private clique) pecuniary or status gains.” This 1969 definition from American political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. identifies practices like bribery, nepotism and misappropriation, all of which are punishable in Philippine law.
Small wonder that in yet another global measure of ignominy, our country is 114th out of 180 in the Corruption Perceptions Index. The Index, published by Transparency International, reflects 2024 and may worsen in the next edition. Like the 2009 Maguindanao massacre in which 32 journalists were killed and saw our press freedom score take a steep dive the following year.
Before we fully accept abject corruption as an inescapable way of life, a process critical theorists call “normalization,” we the people still have a chance to redeem ourselves. This we call hope. As we end another jubilee year in the Catholic Church with the theme, “Pilgrims of Hope,” church-goers last Sunday heard Scripture passages about the steward squandering his master’s property and sneaky merchants devising ways to cheat an unsuspecting public. Our hope, and warning, comes from the prophet Amos who assured the people that God “will never forget a thing” the corrupt have done. Bishops worldwide have predetermined these readings way in advance, but we believe that the timing wasn’t an accident. The indictments from the Bible will continue next Sunday against those who live in complacency in total disregard of the poor.
What can we do, or hope for?
We heard a wide variety of messages at Sunday’s rally. Permit me to select what to me made the most sense: Repent, Return and Resolve. We find in the Gospels the story of a tax collector, Zaccheus, whom Jesus singled out for a personal encounter.
Zaccheus promised to give half of his possessions to the poor, and “if I have extorted anything from anyone, I shall repay it four times over.”
Yes, there is hope, even for the corrupt, but they must perform the 3 Rs. In turn, we the public must be vigilant, must resist and denounce all further forms of corruption, must never participate in it or benefit from it, no matter how tempting or desperate. We must support the work of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure for their groundbreaking work. Our wish is that they do their work well and inspire future commissions in other parts of our affairs that need major surgery.
We should support legislation to end political dynasties and the pork barrel; to mandate Freedom of Information, and restore the party-list system to the intentions of the framers of our Constitution, not the self-serving logic of the conniving.
We must support efforts to improve our education system, particularly critical thinking. An ignorant, docile, unthinking population will only benefit the corrupt.
Finally, elect those officials who will perform their sacred duty to the public, and watch them closely during their term.
