Let's play naive, any takers?

Speaking of corruption, Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo once cited P200 billion of public funds lost annually. Being poor in math, I fail to make out the magnitude of such loss. Besides, being used to counting centavos and a few pesos only, seldom in thousands, not in millions, and never in billions, I couldn't follow Marcelo's tracks.

And so, the P20 billion or so for Congress pork barrel annually, or election wastrels of some billions in road users tax funds, motor registration fees, and agricultural funds in the last elections, were just some paltry peanuts to this simple dude.

Also naive in the worldly ways, the survey placing the Philippines as No. 10 - hey, haven't we improved to No. 2? - as the most corrupt country, rings no bell to me.

What registers in my gullible mind is Carcar's claim for the Guinness Book of Records for making the largest leather shoe on earth. Also Filipino "world honors" are the longest "longganiza", the biggest "pizza" pie, the longest "barbecue grills", the longest "lechon" kiss, the longest "inihaw na manok", etc. Yes, we're experts in grandiose deeds that the envious belittle as frivolity, folly, fancy, fad, and whatever f-lettered fantastic and fantabulous trivia and minutiae.

With PGMA at the helm of government as a doctor of economics earned in USA with Bill Clinton as a classmate, no less, one has to believe that corruption will be wiped out in three years. That's what Hong Kong anti-corruption expert Tony Kwok predicted when he led a workshop for various departments and line agencies by Arroyo's Presidential Anti-Graft Commission. Since spokesman Ignacio Bunye fully believed Kwok, who am I not to believe as well?

Besides, PGMA swore to fight corruption and punish all "bad eggs". PGMA had earlier admitted the reality of a fiscal crisis. A month later, she solved the problem by declaring that the fiscal crisis was over. See, just like that, PGMA as an economics expert solved it on her mere say-so. Being the credulous type who prefers the "herbolario" or the "meriko", to the trained "medico", I don't doubt the doctor of economics at all.

Thus, one's atavistic mind doesn't grasp the "jueteng" and "tapegate" sour-grapers and, GMA is correct that these are but canards coming from destabilizers.

Coming down to the local level, and being gullible, I keep artless faith with the honesty and goodness of our national agency employees and of the LGUs, with no exceptions. Hence, I refuse to believe the few complaints of some carpers, viz:

For one, a biased hauler of filling materials, like the "anupog", sassed that haulers give to PENRO a hundred "blues" for a 5-month permit. The acronym could be a brand of fountain pen or ball pen, right? In fact, PENRO is kind to sand and gravel haulers of the Cotcot-Cabadiangan river even on Sundays without let up, never minding environmental concerns at all.

For another, a cowardly caller passed on a P300T scam by an employee of a national agency in a metro city involving bogus property registration documents that was just swept under the rugs by the office head. The caller even said that her report to the local ombudsman didn't merit a hoot. Naiveté led one to believe that the latter, being an "honorable" man, has the discretion what complaints to honor, and what not to honor.

For still another, common "tao" from the provincial outbacks who are too miserly to pay for "services rendered" have denounced offices involved in licensing, or in property registration, or property assessment, or for certain clearances, etc. for not acting on their papers, if they have nothing to grease under the table. Mirisi, mga inot kaayo.

Not believing in these petty carpings since I am the credulous type with regard to the goodness, honesty and integrity of the public bureaucracy, I often tell these carpers to enlist the "facilitators" or the helpful "fixers". See, how simple if only one would not be as stingy and miserly as a squirrel?