Is it corruption or a way of life?
The Philippine Star 09/29/2003

When a contracted Meralco staff, whose daily take home pay is based on an P8-per-delinquent customer he disconnects, accepts a P50 "token" from a threatened household owner, he justifies this by saying he is just being compassionate.

"Sir, bagong panganak lang yung nakatira doon sa puputulan naming bahay. At nangako naman na magbabayad siya bukas. Sinulat na lang namin na ‘hostile homeowner.’ Kawawa naman," rationalizes the lineman.

("Sir, the delinquent homeowner has a newborn baby and it would be heartless to cut off their electricity supply. Besides, they promised to pay the electricity bill tomorrow. We simply put in our log sheet that the homeowner is ‘hostile.’")

This line of thinking reflects the fast blurring difference between values of right and wrong now permeating Philippine society. We don’t have to cite goings-on in the Bureau of Internal Revenue or the Bureau of Customs to state that our values of honesty and integrity as a country are quickly being eroded.

Familiar faces of corruption

Other faces of corruption manifest itself in varied ways in our daily life.

A traffic policeman flags a jeepney driver and a P50 bill quickly passes hands. The driver has learned and accepted through years of experience that it is more convenient to bribe the law enforcer than retrieve his license and pay the P150 penalty or contest the call.

A fresh graduate "applies" for work in a company and immediately gets hired despite the fact that there are better and more qualified applicants. Of course it helps a lot that the hiring personnel’s friend happens to be Daddy.

A businessman needing a local government permit simply calls a friend in City Hall to "fix" things up for a fee. A big company uses contacts to be short listed in a bidding, and eventually taps even bigger connections to bag the contract. Of course, for a fee that forms part of the cost of the project.

These are simple cases of corruption, and yet Filipinos now grow up thinking and accepting that these are normal rather than aberrations. We have lost our sensibility in discerning when the lines of integrity are being crossed.

Worsening corruption rating

It is not therefore surprising that Transparency International (TI), a global coalition of non-government groups against corruption, ranked the Philippines 11th most corrupt worldwide out of 102 nations polled last year, and third in Asia.

TI defines corruption as the abuse of public office for private gain. In its latest report, sharing the notorious spot with the Philippines are Pakistan, Romania, and Zambia. Perceived to be most corrupted is Bangladesh with a score of 1.2 percent followed by Nigeria with a rating of 1.6 percent.

TI uses a so-called corruption perception index, with scores ranging from zero (for highly corrupt) to 10 (for highly clean). The index measures the degree of corruption among public officials as perceived by foreign and local businessmen, as well as risk analysts.

This year, the Philippines dropped to 77th with a score of 2.6 from 65th last year with a rating of 2.9. We tied up for the third most-corrupt nation, chalking 1.7 points to rank equal with Angola, Madagascar, and Paraguay.

(Finland has the enviable score of 9.7, followed by Denmark and New Zealand with 9.5. Iceland is third with a rating of 9.4. In Asia, Singapore has the least corrupt rating of 9.3, and is fourth in the world ratings together with Sweden. The United States ranks 16th with a score of 7.7.)

Those who do nothing share the guilt

Civil service commissioner Karina David believes that in the last 20 years, the government lost some $48 billion or P2.6 trillion to corruption. Annually, this translates to about P100 billion, or enough to substantially reduce the budget deficit and even wipe out the gap in earlier years to allow the government to post a surplus.

David practically tagged all of the state’s 1.5 million workers in corrupt practices when she said that some 30 percent of government employees are directly involved in corruption, while the remaining 70 percent know what is going on but choose not to say or do anything.

In the BIR and Customs, for example, the practice reportedly called "sharing the bounty" is generally known and accepted. The government official who earns from an illicit transaction distributes cash or kind to his subordinates to reinforce the "we are in this together" psychology.

Laws are inutile with corrupt enforcers

A report released by Procurement Watch, a local civil society group working against corruption in the local bureaucracy estimates that the country loses about P21 billion a year from corruption just in the government procurement system.

A new procurement law was passed and the government is citing this as a concrete achievement in combating corruption. But we have so many other laws that are supposed to check corruption. Why are they not effective? Mainly, because corruption permeates the ranks of those who are supposed to implement the law.

Are we ready to change?

Indeed, we are all in this together. With the unabated corruption of basic moral values – not just in government but also the Filipino’s personal life – it will take more than a decade of lifestyle, morality, nightlife or whatever checks to reverse the growing tide of dishonesty in Philippine society.

If any change is to happen, it must start with each one of us. But are we prepared to do so, or will we just wave off the corruption report as "an old hat story".

Think about it.

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