Greed is a deadly sin

I am afraid that the worst idea that has ever come out of Jun Lozada’s testimony on the ZTE-NBN deal is the misimpression that things would have been alright if Abalos and company only moderated their greed. I hope he is not planting this misimpression in the minds of thousands of our young people in his campus tours I realize the concept of moderate greed is something many Pinoys today have accepted… and there lies our problem with government and with life in our country today. 

“I’m old enough to recall the time when corruption in the Third World had what — with hindsight  —  seemed a ‘reasonable’ limit,” Gen  Jose Almonte recalled over dinner with economists last week. Those were the days when 10 percent was considered normal, the General reminisced with not just a bit of sarcasm on the rising cost of corruption.

“But,” the General rued, “the days when people of influence limited themselves to so modest a piece of the action has gone the way of the five-cent cigar. Not only has inflation affected even the going rate for payoffs. Nowadays political scams are so complex that, by the time they mature, there are so many people to whom utang na loob is owed — people who must be given their rightful share of the proceeds.”

The General’s view was quickly validated in a forum held at the Asian Institute of Management. Michael Clancy, chair and CEO of the Philippine Business Leaders Forum (PBLF) said doing business in the region allot about “10 percent” of costs for “facilitation” or bribes. Clancy, who has lived in Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan, said in the Philippines, the figure is 50 percent. And Clancy is even being moderate about our official greed. We are finding out in the ZTE-NBN scandal that the figure can go over 100 percent.

Other than risking the salvation of our souls, this state of immoderate greed is bad for attracting investments. Clancy said low confidence in governance has resulted in weaker inflows of investments: “In terms of putting new investments, they are looking at somewhere else in Asia,” he said.

Clancy said among businessmen, the overwhelming concern nowadays is good governance. “Security would be one percent, and corruption is 99 percent,” he said. “Because of the level of corruption some people have pulled out (of the country).” PBLF has a membership of about 240 executives representing 40 multinational corporations operating in the country.

The Department of Finance has confirmed Clancy’s views. We attracted the lowest level of foreign direct investments among Southeast Asian countries last year, according to a DOF study quoting data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). We attracted only $2.5 billion in FDIs while Singapore attracted $36.9 billion followed by Vietnam with $11.3 billion. Thailand also beat the Philippines, attracting $10 billion in FDIs while Malaysia attracted $9.4 billion in FDIs. Indonesia recorded $5.9 billion in FDIs last year.

Corruption being a moral issue, I don’t know who failed… is it the church in this largely Catholic country? Did the Assumption nuns (or the Jesuits for that matter) fail in their mission to teach Christian values to the children of our elite? Or is it the failure of the Filipino family whose members are now largely separated by continents and oceans as parents seek livelihood in other lands? Or is it our collective failure as persons who should know better that there is no such thing as moderate greed in the same way that a woman cannot be slightly pregnant. Greed is greed. Greed is and always will be a deadly sin.

I guess we all know where Jun Lozada was coming from. We have expressed it ourselves often enough that there is a tolerable level of greed. Jun Lozada has obviously accepted corruption as a given condition for doing business here and the ZTE-NBN deal is evil largely because the corruption associated with it is excessive. We hear many businessmen saying pretty much the same thing too and that’s our tragedy.

This makes the Pastoral Letter from Manila’s bishops over the weekend all the more relevant. The bishops called for “change and forgiveness”, emphasizing that together, we have the capacity to correct and purify the nation by starting with ourselves. As we observe the Lenten season, what better time to reflect on our national situation and our contribution to it.

The bishops rightfully cited EDSA I, euphoric and heroic as it was, as merely “the Filipinos’ day of crossing to freedom; but that was only the first step… The ‘desert’ awaited the people who would be purified and converted, before they become fully liberated.”

Our problem, the bishops pointed out, is our preference for “the convenient streets as the easier route to an imagined freedom, and feared the ‘desert experience’ that awaited conversion and new beginnings…” Now we wonder why we are in this mess.

“Our people are known to be God-fearing and God-loving; sadly, they fight, deceive and kill for money,” the bishops observed. “Shamefully we have been known to be a nation whose prime industry has been identified as politics simply because politics is the main route to power, which, in turn, is the main route to wealth,” they added.

The bishops then focused on the injustice that graft and corruption brings to both the government and society in general. They warned that the rule on God’s Seventh Commandment — “Thou shall not steal” — applies to all. “The subordination of the public good to individual or group interests is what corruption is all about. In whatever form it takes, the practice of corruption in both immoral and unjust. Corruption is worse than lies, because lies are employed only to cover it,” the bishops emphasized.

If there is a time when the commandments of our One True God read like the front pages of the newspapers, this is it. This is what the ZTE-NBN scandal is all about. The bishops are actually saying that the participants in that scandal as well as in all other instances of corruption are risking not just the future of our nation but are also putting their chances for eternal life in the company of our God at extreme risk. It is a scary thought that should guide the Lenten meditations of our leaders.

Yet, it is also clear that all of us have to share the blame for our nation’s condition today even as those holding power have more to account for. As the bishops exhorted us, let us all start with ourselves. If every Filipino did his bit to do right and fight evil in our immediate lives, in our immediate surroundings, the cumulative effect would be a nation reborn to the Christian precepts we all learned as children but now just pay lip service to.

And while we are expected to take concrete action to remedy our condition, let us not forget the power of prayer. Maybe our country is what it is today because we just don’t pray hard and often enough. Nothing prepares us for action as well as fervent praying… getting into an honest conversation with God. May we all have the opportunity to dialogue with God this Lenten season and thus be able to renew our lives this Easter.

A Happy Easter to all of us.

Last words

Dr. Ernie E forwarded this one.

Mary goes up to Father O’Grady’s after his Sunday morning service, and she’s in tears.

He says, “So what’s bothering you, Mary my dear?”

She says, “Oh, Father, I’ve got terrible news. My husband passed away last night.”

The priest says, “Oh, Mary, that’s terrible. Tell me, did he have any last requests?”

She says, “That he did, Father...”

The priest says, “What did he ask, Mary?”

She says, “He said, ‘Please Mary, put down that damn gun!’”

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]