War against corruption

I started writing a column more than 25 years ago in the year 2000, which was the beginning of the 21st century. As I review my past columns, I noticed right away that one of my most written topics was corruption in the Philippines.

In fact, I can just copy one of my previous columns on this topic and reprint it today and it would be just as relevant then as it is now. I find this so tragic that after a whole generation, corruption remains so prevalent.

In one of my earliest columns, I wrote that our society has been invaded by what I called tidal corruption, in which the government machinery from top to bottom is seriously infected by corruption, entering into all levels of the decision-making process and seriously affecting lives.

There are always pockets of corruption in any society in the world. However, when there is widespread corruption in the government, including the center of power, the number of perpetrators multiplies more rapidly than any other type of criminal behavior. The result is an almost complete paralysis of the government machinery. Another effect is the severe dampening of the enthusiasm of the sincere and capable civil servants, which leads to the resignation of many of them.

The most devastating effect of corruption is that it undermines the goals of development – which are to improve the living conditions and to give every citizen the opportunity to live a life of human dignity.

I remember writing in another column 15 years ago: “Corruption distorts the political system, debilitates the administration, undermines the interest and welfare of the community, creates negligence, inefficiency and parasitism in the bureaucracy and prevents honest leaders from succeeding… A corrupt environment has the effect of spreading throughout the totality of society and encourages corrupt practices even outside the government sector.”

The overwhelming negative effect on the economy by corruption demoralizes the citizenry and encourages brain drain or migration by the brightest minds in the country. Corruption also corrodes respect for authority, especially when the electoral process is distorted by corruption. It also erodes the integrity of the judiciary. The end result of all of this is political instability.

Corruption also undermines respect for constitutional authority, which tends to deprive a government of public support and alienates public devotion to government objectives. The important thing to realize is that corruption is not an end in itself, but always a means to an end. The ultimate objectives of corrupt people are wealth, power, influence or control.

Throughout history, there have been many studies on the causes of corruption. In ancient China, Wang An Shai wrote that the two ever recurrent sources of corruption were bad laws and bad men. The 14th century Islamic scholar Abdul Rahman Ibn Khaldul considered the root of corruption to be the passion for luxurious living within the ruling group. It was to meet the cost of luxurious living that the ruling group resorted to corrupt dealings. The corruption of the ruling group brought about economic difficulties and induced further corruption.

Most people who write on the topic of corruption have written that it is not the political system or the economic condition which is decisive on the elimination of corruption but the nature of leadership in power.

A corrupt leadership would immediately and quickly breed corruption down the line of authority. Once this takes place, it would take years or even decades before corruption can be absolutely minimized.

The previous Marcos Sr. regime is blamed for breeding a whole political generation wherein corruption was a dominant trait.

In a morally decadent society where corruption has become accepted behavior, people in other sectors have also become corrupt. The businessmen who complain about corruption do not hesitate to cheat on their taxes or send their money illegally out of the country with the excuse that this is “how things are done here” or “everybody does it.”

There are many things that have to be done if we are to minimize corruption in this country. But where do we start? The 1998 Nobel Prize winner for Economics Amartya Sen said: “There is I believe in this piece of ancient wisdom. Corrupt behavior in high places can have the effects far beyond the direct consequences of that behavior and the insistence of starting at the top does have reasoning behind it.”

The most important factor in the struggle against “tidal corruption” is the moral and intellectual stature of the leaders in society. There have been many such leaders in the past, like Lorenzo Tañada, Jose W. Diokno, Joker Arroyo.

The Philippines is an overwhelmingly Catholic country and the Church must take responsibility for the state of morality in Philippine society. It is therefore the duty and obligation of the leaders of the Church to lead the struggle against corruption in government, in business and in all sectors of society.

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