Can we still be saved from corruption?

Tomorrow, June 12, we commemorate the 128th anniversary of Philippine independence.

It is a good time to review how far we have come as a nation and as a people; and how much further we have to go. The late senator Jose W. Diokno had a vision for the Philippines and its people. This was a country where there was justice for all, and jobs for all Filipinos. This vision had three major obstacles. These were dictatorship, quality education and corruption. In 1986, the EDSA Revolution removed the first obstacle. In the 2022 elections, the nation was able to deny a return to an authoritarian government. Quality education is a long-term challenge that we need to overcome if we are to have the realization of the Diokno vision.

However, today the immediate and greatest challenge is winning the war against corruption. In 1987, during a Solidarity Conference, F. Sionil Jose stated that a just, self-reliant and sovereign society where the mass of the people live in freedom and progress is the vision that the Filipino holds for himself. For this vision to be a reality, the people themselves must be renewed ethically, with their leaders setting a high moral example.

The media is having a circus with its daily trumpeting of all these accusations and counter accusations of all types of corruption from the flood control scandals to election cheating. However, just like the circus, the current investigations and the circus actors and actresses will again fold their tents quietly and it will look like the circus never even came.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada has been accused of plunder for the third time this year. He is not the only one, as other senators and major political figures have also been frequently accused in the past.

The struggle for power in the Senate includes old names using the same methods like Alan Peter Cayetano, Joel Villanueva and Bato de la Rosa.

The media itself has been accused of being paid hacks. Many personalities in the present media, to be fair, are leading the fight against corruption. Maria Ressa is a shining example of what media should be and can be. She has set very high standards for ethical reporting.

In this war against corruption, I have been re-reading my old books on corruption. There is one book that I first read more than 25 years ago that I feel is so relevant today. It was written by Malaysian academic, sociologist and a pioneer in the study of corruption in Asia, Syed Hussein Alatas, entitled “Corruption and the Destiny of Asia.” He divided corruption into three stages. And I fear that the Philippines is very close to the third stage. The three stages are as follows:

Stage One: Corruption is relatively restricted without affecting a wide area of social life. In this stage, the people can accomplish without hindrance and extortion almost all of our dealings with the government in most of our routine affairs. Rights and regulations are implemented without public suffering. Almost everything the public requires from the government can be obtained without recourse to graft or nepotism. This would be heaven for us.

Stage Two: This stage is where corruption has become rampant and all pervading. There is hardly anything anyone can do without graft. This situation is not limited to traditional centers of corruption like the BIR, Customs, national police or DENR. The judiciary has also been widely infiltrated by corrupt judges.

Stage Three: It is at times the most difficult to notice. This is when corruption becomes self-destructive after being accepted by the so-called “good people” in society as a way of life.

Alatas in his book quoted two scholars from ancient history on the topic of corruption.

The 14th century Chinese reformer Wang An Shih said that the two ever recurrent sources of corruption were bad laws and bad men. He classified human beings into two groups – the morally mediocre and the morally high. According to him, the danger comes when the moral mediocrities gain control of government. Their actions then release all sorts of corrupt forces throughout the country. It would be good to ask whether our government is in the hands of moral mediocrities and how can we put the morally high persons in power in 2028.

A 14th century Islamic scholar, Ibn Khaldun, wrote that the root causes of corruption is the passion for luxurious living within the ruling class. This insight provides the answer why the flood control scandal resulted in corruption amounting to billions, even trillions, of pesos.

According to Alatas, the most important factor in the dynamics of corruption that are necessary to at the very least minimize corruption is the moral and intellectual stature of the leaders of society. Only then can we have an efficient administration, the functioning of an anti-corruption values system, the leadership of a group with high moral and intellectual standards and an educated public with sufficient intelligence to follow the course of current events.

We can only hope and pray that in 2028 or sooner, we will find these “saviors” that will finally lead the Philippines to the Diokno vision of a country where there is justice and jobs for all Filipinos.