In one of her tirades, the late Madame Miriam Defensor-Santiago said the Philippine government was “one of the most corrupt in the world.”
Dear Madame Miriam, that is because CORRUPTION HAS EVOLVED INTO A “CULTURE.”
What does it mean when we say corruption has become a culture? It means corruption has achieved CRITICAL MASS. It has become the NORM, the quiet battle cry in the halls of Congress and Government. They feel that they have to be corrupt because everybody does it.
MAHIRAP NANG MAIWANAN. It is not good to be left behind. Today, they have become AMORAL (absence of morality), one step higher than IMMORAL. As such, they no longer feel guilty. In fact, they bask in the “glory” of their genius — envied by many, a model for others to emulate.
A case in point: the Environment Management Bureau (EMB, an attached agency of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources or DENR).
In the days when I was a communications consultant for an international consultancy firm with bilateral contracts with the DENR, Edna (not her real name, for privacy) and I were both members of the consultancy team tasked with coming up with reports required by the DENR. She was later assigned to head the EMB. This is her story.
The EMB that she headed had the task of evaluating the required Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) of corporations whose projects might impact the environment, as a prerequisite for granting an environmental license to operate. This meticulous highly technical report, normally bible thick, required months of field work and meetings with the EMB to ensure that requirements were being met. EIA approval, many times, involved token gifts to speed up approval.
Edna, as soon as she headed the EMB, stopped the practice of accepting gifts. This infuriated the people under her supervision who were denied the gifts. Earlier EMB heads permitted the practice provided they received a portion of the gifts, in fact the lion’s share.
One day, driving her car to go home, all four wheels fell from the axles. The bolts were simply loosened, and after a kilometer or two they disengaged. She had to wait more than an hour during rush hour to get assistance. Then she realized she could not handle the situation anymore. She finally resigned. She was the victim of the “corruption culture” prevalent in government agencies.
When corruption has evolved into a culture, it is harder to contain because it has achieved critical mass. The only way to contain corruption as a culture is perhaps to have: 1) a benign dictator who can cut through the legal aspects to contain the wild spread of corruption, or 2) a charismatic leader who has the creative skills to fight this powerful evil force at its very core to save the nation.
We need a leader who can reverse the course of corruption, which is spreading like wild fire to destroy the nation. Alas, we have a leadership crisis. Will one moral leader emerge somewhere somehow sometime? We need one badly. No one seems to stand out to be a true moral leader.
Until we get one, dogs will rule the nation making “dog laws” for self-interest. Here is the link to Madame Miriam’s tirade against the “corruption culture” — https://fb.watch/HdvdjHGQWa/?fs=e.
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