Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Carvajal: Our corrupt bureaucracy By Orlando P.Carvajal Break Point
THE government disputes the finding that it is not doing enough to stop corruption. Yet, so far in the lamppost scandal, nobody from the top has made a categorical condemnation of the overpricing. Instead, everybody is hedging. President Arroyo has not come out fuming against whoever might be the perpetrators of this extremely dishonest transaction. Former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) secretary Hermo-genes Ebdane shirks responsibility by blaming the locals for recommending the high prices that, he admitted, he approved.
Nevertheless, one-time but big corrupt transactions like this one are not the most costly. The biggest losses to corruption happen in the slow, cumbersome, tiring, exasperating and downright frustrating bureaucratic mazes one gets lost in when transacting business with the government. And the biggest proof that this government or any government of the elite for that matter has not done enough to curb corruption lies in the fact that government bureaucracy is as slow, tiresome and cumbersome as ever.
Check it out. If we have a population of 85,000,000 and just 1 percent of that transacts business with the government daily at an average of P100 grease money per transaction, that comes to a whooping and staggering daily take of P85,000,000 or, after multiplying that figure by 20 working days to P1,700,000,000 a month. That’s how much Juan de la Cruz loses to corrupt government bureaucrats.
The illustrative amount I am using is really small since P100 only pays for one traffic violation while passing (bypassing really) an emission test costs P500. And God only knows how much grease money gets the job done at Customs, Bureau of Internal Revenue, DPWH, etc.
Not only is there no big effort to simplify and speed up the bureaucratic process, there is also what would seem like a deliberate effort (intentional neglect if you like) in many government offices to inconvenience people so they cough up some cash just to survive the grueling ordeal of transacting business in a government office.
Why can’t some offices, for instance, have more clerks so lines do not have to spill out into the hot sun or pouring rain? Why can’t we have express windows and information desks? Imagine lining up the whole morning only to be told at your turn that you were in the wrong line or you are missing a document? How cruel is that? But that’s the sad and cruel reality in Philippine bureaucracy. It tests pocket and soul.
No Virginia, the government is not doing nearly enough to curb corruption. It may have caught some big ones but it’s our corrupt bureaucracy that is costing us more and perpetuating a culture of corruption. Show me a streamlined bureaucracy and I’ll show you a government that is doing enough to curb corruption.
