Basket case

About four decades ago, Bangladesh was a symbol of poverty, hunger and violent conflict. Beatle George Harrison staged a star-studded concert in New York for the benefit of refugees from the war for Bangladeshi independence, which was aggravated by a cyclone that brought torrential flooding.

That was in 1971, and for several years after Bangladesh attained independence, it continued to be cited as the Asian economic basket case.

Today Bangladesh has improved in many human development indicators, though it continues to suffer from many of the problems that afflict emerging economies.

It has made progress in its battle against corruption, ranking 139th out of 180 countries in the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) prepared by Transparency International.

And guess which countries are ranked together with Bangladesh, Asia’s former basket case? Pakistan, from which Bangladesh broke away; Belarus, and the Philippines.

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Though our country improved a few notches after a continuing slide in recent years, the ranking is still dismaying.

For several years, foreigners doing business in this country had warned that if the Philippines continued its slide in its CPI ranking, it could reach the level of Bangladesh.

Now there we are, right smack in the place of dishonor, though it’s not as much a dishonor for Bangladesh, since its ranking has steadily improved. If this is sustained, Bangladesh can soon overtake us in the CPI.

It’s even more dismaying if we consider that other countries that suffered from violent conflict and social upheavals in the recent past, as well as those that are hardly role models for functioning democracies, were rated better than us.

Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua and Uganda are tied for 130th place. Ethiopia and Vietnam are among six countries in 120th. Bosnia-Herzegovina is ranked 99th, Serbia 83rd, Colombia 75th, Croatia 66th and Cuba 61st.

China, home of ZTE, but where officials convicted of corruption have been executed, is ranked 79th. The Chinese might have invented corruption, if we are to believe Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, but they are seen by the world to be doing better than Filipinos in confronting the scourge.

In Southeast Asia, we fared better than Timor-Leste, Cambodia, Laos and perennial tail-ender Myanmar.

Thailand leapt past us years ago, and Indonesia, torn apart by violent riots only two decades ago, is ranked 111th.

These are just perceptions, according to Philippine government officials, including those tasked to go after the corrupt.

But those are informed perceptions, gathered from local representatives of the organizations whose inputs were obtained by Transparency International (TI) in 13 expert and business surveys.

The low Philippine ranking should be as much of a concern for us as our continuing slide in competitiveness and quality of education. One look at the CPI and you can see that corruption must have something to do with economic development, prosperity and quality of life.

Leading the list of the least corrupt countries are New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada and Iceland.

At the bottom is pirate haven Somalia, where there is no functioning government. Slightly ahead are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan, Iraq, Chad and Uzbekistan, with six tied for 168th place: Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Haiti, Iran and Turkmenistan.

Bangladesh used to be the Asian economic disaster benchmark. Will the Philippines one day take its place?

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That could happen if we continue to ignore the problems that breed corruption.

Here is TI’s prescription for this illness: “Stemming corruption requires strong oversight by parliaments, a well performing judiciary, independent and properly resourced audit and anti-corruption agencies, vigorous law enforcement, transparency in public budgets, revenue and aid flows, as well as space for independent media and a vibrant civil society.”

That’s from TI chair Huguette Labelle, who also said that the international community must deprive the corrupt of safe havens for their loot, promote transparency and accountability among beneficiaries of foreign aid, and “find efficient ways to help war-torn countries to develop and sustain their own institutions.”

Most of the factors mentioned in TI’s prescription are absent in our society. And we aren’t going to develop them overnight.

Watching the realignments and other political developments leading up to the May elections doesn’t inspire much hope. The political horse-trading that breeds post-election corruption is starting even now, before the campaign formally opens, and all the political parties are engaged in it.

What we can expect, when a new administration is in place, is that there will soon be a new Ombudsman, and hopefully it will be someone who will never have to make excuses for the country’s poor showing in all international studies on corruption and transparency.

That useless Presidential Anti-Graft Commission, which at best duplicates the functions of the Office of the Ombudsman, can be abolished.

The institutional reforms will take time, effort and commitment. Effective parliamentary oversight? An independent judiciary, vigorous law enforcement, transparency in public budgets and revenue? The people in charge of these aspects of government are committed to preserving the status quo.

The best that we can hope for after the 2010 elections is that at least some of the most notorious crooks of the Arroyo administration will be prosecuted for corruption.

Unless we start punishing the corrupt and showing the world that the immoderately greedy cannot get away with thievery in the Philippines, we are condemned to have the same crooks running our government, over and over.