Rebuilding communities against corruption

My baptism of fire in public interest lawyering was a lesson in community empowerment. I was defending a group of farmers in southern Cebu sometime in 2011. At first, it looked like an ordinary case where my task as a lawyer was to prove facts and argue defenses in court. But my immersion with the farmers made me understand the social context that lay beneath the dispute.

I came to realize that the real battle was not confined to court processes but extended to strengthening the community’s advocacy for better land rights and social justice. By engaging directly with the farmers, I saw how our laws interact with lived realities.

It helped that the farmers were already organized, and it made me realize that an empowered community is never helpless. By ‘empowered’, I mean they are well-organized, they know their rights, they know how to assert them, and that they can depend on each other. In February 2014, perhaps as a result of that experience, I received a Tatak UP Award for Community Empowerment.

That experience made me realize that advocacies within an empowered community guarantee not only meaningful outcomes but also everyone’s safety and sense of security. Before accepting any active or prominent leadership role in the community, for example, I would prefer to first work toward its empowerment. That is because a disempowered community is a recipe either for one’s own evolution into a ruling elite, or for one’s downfall as a hero succumbing to the darker elements of society.

The same darker elements now engulf our country in the corruption scandal on flood control projects. The president’s SONA speech, the heavy rains that followed, and the flaunting of alleged ill-gotten wealth on social media by “nepo babies” have converged into a simmering outrage that has embroiled our nation today. Will this finally lead to sustainable reforms against corruption?

Let’s examine the solutions being presented. Congress has begun exercising its oversight role. Malacañang is forming an independent commission to probe flood control and other infrastructure projects. The news media is likewise more active in reporting on the issue. Together, these efforts help expose corruption and raise public awareness.

Then there are the typically knee-jerk proposals like the death penalty for plunderers. That has never worked, and never will. What might work are reasonable prison sentences, more convictions, and yes, making our prisons larger and more humane. Another proposal is to strengthen anti-corruption bodies like the Ombudsman (as if it were not already strong enough, at least on paper).

The hard truth is, all these are just layers upon layers of mechanisms piled onto a system that has never really nudged corruption out of our lives.

Even strengthening education cannot by itself solve corruption in our society. I have one foot in the academe, and I can say that I’ve also seen how academics tend to lecture society from a moral high ground. I’ve listened to academics talk about politics and governance but have never even immersed themselves with communities, or spent hours engaging with politicians or working with them, at least at arm’s length. This brings me back to my earlier point about community empowerment.

Fighting corruption begins with rebuilding our smallest communities into organized and empowered ones. Such communities are something we have lost along the way, or never had enough of. I grew up in the 1980s often hearing from family, relatives, and their friends that the Philippines was hopeless, and that migrating or working abroad was the only solution. We have this habit of tearing ourselves down. Filipinos travel abroad, see something admirable, and instead of thinking how to apply it back home, they sigh: “Wala ni sa ato” or “Wa g’yuy ayo ang Pilipinas.” If we constantly believe our country is hopeless, then we would also accept hopeless leaders.

Instead of strengthening our smallest communities --those chapel groups, the puroks, our neighborhood associations-- and learning to engage with each other and act together in mutually beneficial ways, we have weakened them. Community organizing has become the least of our priorities, with many of us competing to be nearest the “luwag” for our own triumphs or survival. Feeling left behind, the masses naturally gravitate toward dependence on the powerful, even when those very elites exploit their vulnerability.

This discussion is too long for today’s space. Next week, I’ll share insights grounded on research on how community empowerment prevents corruption by building internal resilience.