Inherently corrupt

I grew up in the part of Paco near the boundary with Pandacan. My Dad and I take the Pandacan bus going to Echague in Quiapo where I board a JD bus to UP Diliman while my Dad takes a jeepney going to Dapitan that passes by UST where he was a professor of Medicine.

Sometimes, interesting conversations crop up on the Pandacan bus. One time, the driver was loudly proclaiming the hopelessness of Filipinos. We should all be annihilated by an atomic bomb, he said, because we are hopeless.

Maybe what pissed him off was a usual encounter with traffic cops with his conductor paying “tribute.” Street-based corruption or kotongan is a normal daily occurrence but it probably was getting into his system and he needed to voice out his frustration.

Corruption had been in the headlines lately and there were expressions of shock at the amount of money being stolen in the Great DPWH Flood Control Robbery. People knew that corruption existed but were dumbfounded by the systematic plunder by congressmen, senators, contractors, DPWH district engineers.

We took it for granted that the quality of public works projects is low due to the practice of sharing a budget allocation. It started with 20 percent being divided “by the boys” but now, BBM found out there is a prevalence of ghost projects which means 100 percent of a budget allocation is shared by the crooks with nothing left for the project.

So, BBM faces the challenge of dealing with massive corruption. Is he up to it? Are we inherently corrupt as a people? Some sociologists trace that back to colonial times.

Raymund Narag, a PhD, posted on Facebook what he called the Catechism of Corruption. It reads like a tongue-in-cheek guide for anyone sleazy enough to wade in the mud of corruption at DPWH.

“If you bid on government projects in this country, don’t even dream of offering the true cost. If your project is worth P10 million, you quote P100 million. Why? Because the cost of doing business here isn’t cement or gravel — it’s grease.

“The politician who sourced the funds takes his cut. The agency that administers the funds takes its cut. And within every agency lurks an entire ecosystem: the one who disburses, the one who accounts, the one who audits, the one who monitors. Miss even one and suddenly your documents have ‘technical defects.’

“A missing signature here, an incomplete form there. And just like that, they’ve found the perfect legal basis to disqualify you. Even if you somehow win, they’ll sit on your funds. No release, no progress, until you learn to cough up.

“So, you grease. At every step, you grease. You shake hands with everyone. You make ambon for the janitor, the guard, the driver, the clerk. Because they know. And you must prove you are a ‘team player,’ that you know how to play the game…

“If you are a contractor, stay invisible. Huwag kang lumutang. Don’t call out corruption. Don’t raise your voice. That’s their diskarte. Naunahan ka lang. You’ll have your turn next time. Panapanahon lang iyan.

“And don’t be greedy. Don’t hoard the blessings. Share them. Donate to churches, to schools, to barangays. Pampabawas ng kasalanan. And when watchdogs come sniffing, blind them. Suhulan mo. Because watchdogs in this country aren’t really watchdogs — they’re stray dogs sniffing for scraps. Feed them and they’ll go quiet…

“This is the catechism of corruption. Narratives whispered and repeated, passed down like heirlooms. Children hear them at the dinner table. Nephews see them modeled by uncles. Nieces learn them from aunties.

“Grandchildren grow up on them, until they themselves run for office. Until they set up their own party–lists. Until they fund their campaigns with the loot of projects. Until they win, and suddenly wield regulatory control over budgets…

“Social learning theory says it best: corruption is learned. The justifications are learned. The techniques are learned. The more you are exposed to them, the more you practice them, the more natural they become. Until you, too, are teaching them to the next generation…”

There are a few more paragraphs in Narag’s Facebook post. Those interested should just search for his Facebook wall.

The real problem is how society idolizes anyone with a lot of money regardless of how wealth was obtained. We can see that in some of the influencers in social media. Even Julius thought the Discayas were inspiring.

Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto is spot on when he urged the public to “challenge the culture” of admiring ostentatious displays of wealth by public officials and relatives of contractors, stressing that such behavior is “strong evidence” of how corruption has been normalized in the country.

And corruption pervades even private corporations. A 2024 NUS Business School survey tracking the top 50 publicly listed companies in five countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) assessed anti-corruption disclosure performance:

Average disclosure score declined from 69 percent (2022) to 64 percent (2024). Thailand led at 80 percent, followed by Malaysia (75 percent), Singapore (63 percent).

The Philippines saw the largest drop to 55 percent. No wonder the growth of our stock market is stunted. It took the SEC to act on the excessive valuation being claimed by a prominent issue. So much for the toothless self-governing PSE.

Randy David sums up our problem: “Corruption is rampant in our institutions, yet many people fail to recognize it as such. To them, giving preferential treatment to relatives, close friends, or political allies, or taking bribes or kickbacks so one can have money to assist the needy, is not corruption — it’s simply part of the system. Those who understand the situation but have given up hope for a better society may sometimes shrug and say, “It is what it is.”

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco