When we hear the word corruption, we imagine the usual circus — fat envelopes passed under tables, padded contracts bloated with greed, politicians who treat public funds as their personal buffet. The latest exposé on flood control projects only confirmed what we already knew. The real flood is not of water, but of conscience long clogged by greed.

But corruption in this country has many guises. It doesn’t always wear a Rolex or a crocodile on its shirt. It doesn’t have to involve kickbacks from projects, rigged bidding, ghost employees, or misused funds. These are the villains that make headlines — and rightly so.

But there are subtler species that slip beneath our moral radar. They stroll in casual wear, sit in air-conditioned offices, preside over meetings, and sign papers that serve power instead of people. Their habits seep into the daily routine of offices, so common we mistake them for normal instead of what they are: a grave abuse of duty and power.

Take political corruption, where public office is used for personal or partisan gain, favoring allies, manipulating appointments, and bending rules to reward loyalty instead of merit.

There is also bureaucratic corruption — the small, daily acts of extortion. The staff who won’t stamp your paper without the promise of a “merienda.” The permit that moves faster when it’s greased. Processes have become a spider’s web, and the fly is always the Filipino trying to do things right.

And then there is the corruption of duty when incompetence, laziness, or apathy become the norm in public service. The employee who strolls in late, vanishes at noon, and leaves early with a multitude of excuses. The supervisor who signs without reading, forgetting that every delayed signature is an opportunity lost, if not a life. The worker who fails to deliver, burdening others to cover for their slack. They may not steal cash, but they steal something more precious: the people’s time, dignity, and faith that government can work at all.

Corruption, then, is not only an act. It lingers in the air we breathe, invisible yet choking. It thrives in silence, in resignation, in the phrase “ganyan talaga” (that’s the way it is). It grows when we excuse inefficiency as normal or dismiss small wrongs as harmless. Reform cannot rest on stricter laws alone. It must come from a moral awakening where public service is seen as a sacred duty, where every servant remembers whom they serve.

The battle against corruption begins when we end the silent tolerance of incompetence and indifference. Having headed the Competitiveness and Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Group during my stint as Undersecretary, we pushed for the realization of the EODB Act of 2018 which created the Anti-Red Tape Authority. ARTA was made to give Filipinos a voice to stand against these corruptions. Let us use this platform to make our voices heard.

We are tired of hearing about good governance only in press releases and slogans. It’s time we feel it at the counter when one requests for a building permit, when a farmer or MSME requests for assistance, in every hand that signs a paper meant to move a life forward.

The real battle we face on the ground is not the corruption that just robs us of our taxes and tomorrow but also of our dignity and the little precious time we have today, all because of that one delayed signature, the one meeting full of empty chatter that could have resulted in an email, and that one employee with a salary taken but not earned.