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Sunday, January 19, 2003
Mercado: Are the Ten Commandments now just ‘Ten Suggestions’?
By Juan L. Mercado
Is a “culture of corruption so embedded here that it’s most impoverished victims rebel violently to protect the very grafters who strut as their defenders while robbing them blind?
Ateneo de Naga University’s new book, “Cross-Sectoral Study of Corruption in the Philippines,” raises that provocative question.
The Jesuits’ Evangelization of Culture Committee researched that issue for the book after the Labor Day 2001 assault on Malacañang. A battering ram, made up of poor people, slammed against Gate 7 to oust the new president.
People Power 2 had then just installed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in office. It earlier ousted President Joseph Estrada with his “5 K Government” of kamag-anak, kaibigan, kaklase, kumpadre—at kabit.
Estrada allies like Juan Ponce Enrile, Ernesto Maceda and Panfilo Lacson were criticized later for allegedly orchestrating the attack, then scrambling out of harm’s way.
Maceda washed his hands saying:”I was in my pyjamas.” They expected, their critics claimed, to scavenge in anticipated ruins of the People Power 2 presidency.
More significantly, the attack was “mind-boggling,” especially for self-effacing priests, nuns and lay workers who lived among the needy and labored to better their lives
The conviction that their long years of working with the masses for social change made significant impact suddenly crumbled,” the book notes. “The very people they’d worked for were now at the forefront of the upheaval providing support to the corrupt administration of Estrada.”
Despite sophisticated programs, “they had not fully understood the poor,” the study observes. “Nor had they responded adequately to their needs.
The Palace attack demonstrated, for Jesuits, that their thrust for promotion of faith that does justice”—mandated by the Society of Jesus’ 34th General Congregation—”had badly fallen short of their goals.”
A culture of politics proved “impervious to church workers, no matter how they attempted to come closer to the poor,” the study observes.
This culture must be keel hauled. This “involves influencing, not only the poor, but the wealthy and powerful as well.”
Jesuit scholars thus probed for what underpinned ironic support, by the poor, for leaders who exploited them. “They identified corruption as a pervasive social problem that required urgent action.
Using focus group discussion approaches, the researchers consulted with various economic classes: from lumads of Davao and Ibaloys of Baguio to Amari-suited businessmen; ecumenical groups as well as slum dwellers.
Poverty is inextricably linked to corrupt practices that are deeply rooted in society…and the monstrosity of corruption seems utterly difficult to capture in a single illustration,” the book wryly admits. .
The wide range of their responses on notions about corruption seems to reflect the pervasiveness of the phenomenon.” Some responses:
Jose Velarde or Mark Jimenez did not invent misuse of public office.
Nor were they first to betray public trust for private gain in a dishonest or questionable manner.
Historians document how Spanish Governor Jose Basco monkeyed with the colonial government’s tobacco monopoly. That echoed in the Estrada impeachment trial that said kickbacks were extorted for release of Ilocos Virginia leaf tobacco subsidies.
Corruption reached its zenith during the Marcos dictatorship. Concentrated state power spawned “Pacman,” the coconut levy and brought the economy to the verge of collapse.”
So, have the Ten Commandments been watered down to just “Ten Suggestions”?
Imprecise statistical estimates of corruption’s costs would suggest that. Out of every tax peso, grafters pocket 20 centavos. The Mindanao Business Council places losses between 1995 to 2000 at P609 billion—almost equal this year’s national budget. And the World Bank pegs losses from procurement alone at $2 billion.
Perceptions of corruption color vocabulary, the researchers found. They also shape imagery.
Four symbols were seared into minds, especially of students, urban poor and NGOs, namely: crocodile (buaya); a contagious disease (isang sakit na nakakahawa); octopus with tentacles (galamay); and roots (ugat) of a tree.
Local parlance reflects this infection. These include: Utos sa taas (“Order from above”) to tea-money: “may pangmeryenda ka ba diyan?
(“Speed money” greases)... And indigenous folk dub grafters: maro--not trustworthy.
The book has specific recommendations “to start a long-term anti-corruption program.” Addressed to various groups, they range from stripping glamour from the corrupt to transparency mechanisms.
The proposals are anchored to analysis of societal factors. Utang na loob reciprocity is not seen as a bribery but fulfillment of a social obligation. Opportunities for graft are created when people tolerate the unpunished corrupt. So do wide discretionary powers.
Filipino personalism is expressed in nepotism through palakasan and pakikisama,” the study notes. “In the presence of government officials, people tend to be trusting, deferential or yielding.
Where’s the line drawn? Some respondents, like NGOs, insist the end does not justify the means. The book thus offers material for consideration by parents, teachers, shrinks, editorial writers, officials—even crooks.
Profits and cost-benefit ratios come into play. Is the businessman who bribes a customs officer different from the student who smuggles a codigo for his exams? “It is less expensive to cheat than to repeat,” the student says.
Or did the Master phrase the issue of bottom lines in the black more precisely: “What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world...”
(e-mail: juan_mercado @pacific.net.ph)
(January 19, 2003 issue)
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