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The English cleric, writer and art collector Charles Caleb Colton
who wrote a collection of aphorisms and essays about conduct (but
who wasn’t the model for moral conduct) once said, “Corruption
is like a ball of snow, once it’s set rolling it must increase.”
Right now, we are living in a society riddled
with corruption, all the way up to the highest echelons of power,
and not a few would claim emanating from the very top. It seems it
has always been so, and indeed, those who favor a less radical form
of action in addressing corruption are making the argument that we
just can’t expect to change things overnight; that even the
replacement of a corrupt president and her administration will not
stop corruption altogether.
It’s true what they’re saying. Corruption
has become both institutional and cultural and we can’t change
things overnight, or with one fell swoop, so to speak. But then, how
do you begin to address corruption without doing something about the
leadership of the country that has been corruption’s main
purveyor?
I understand it when people, including certain
members of the Church hierarchy, say that corruption is so endemic,
calling for the resignation of GMA would not solve the problem; that
we have to start with ourselves and that the moral transformation
should be societal as well as institutional.
I agree. The fight against corruption—and
specifically the call for GMA to step down—should not be seen in
isolation from the moral transformation of Philippine society, and
from strengthening governments and institutions. We can truly make
waves against corruption through better financial management of
public resources, a stronger and more independent judiciary (which
we are beginning to have again), a Congress that stands by its
promises, a dynamic civil society. We also need good political
governance, and transparency and accountability in government.
But what happens when the president and her
administration herself refuse to practice these? What happens when
the biggest corruption scandals, involving millions if not billions
of pesos, are not investigated, when these criminal offenses are not
prosecuted and punished?
We know, that as far as laws and institutions
are concerned, we have the proper safeguards; that we have a
rigorous system of audit and inspection to account for public money,
to take tough and uncompromising action on corruption, as the laws
of the land dictate. There is a lot of room for improvement, for
sure, but as it is now, the laws and institutions can be adequate,
that is, should this government really want to police its ranks and
rid the bureaucracy and the state of official corruption. The laws
are implementable, and there are enough anti-corruption agencies and
watchdogs to implement them.
But what happens when the powerful leadership of
this country, propped up by all the powers of the state, is the one
tolerating, even engineering corruption? What happens when it
refuses to hold people accountable, when it refuses to be held
accountable and has managed to push itself above the Constitution
and the country’s laws, which it so very conveniently proclaims to
its own ends?
Do we, as a people, tolerate this, or do we send
a clear message that we will not live in a society like this? A lot
of our countrymen take it literally. They leave the country and
literally refuse to live here. Frustrated by all the corruption,
they seek a better life in other countries. For the others, like
those I see rallying in the streets, they choose to stay and do
something to change the country they are living in. This gives me so
much joy and hope.
It is the duty of every citizen to fight against
corruption, to denounce it, and to uncover it wherever it is seen.
It’s a very difficult to do, but it is the everyday cost for
attaining a just and ethical society, which right now is all but a
dream in the future. But for all the people choosing to take action,
those who are rallying in the streets and shouting from the
rooftops, that dream is better than accepting the reality as it is.
They just can’t tolerate the corruption from the top any longer.
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