Corruption is prevalent in the Philippines. It is even something that sticks to the idea of the Philippine “Government”. According to Transparency International in their 2013 Corruption Perception Index, the Philippines ranked 94th of the 177 countries in the survey. But knowing there are 83 more countries which are said to be more corrupt than us in the said survey, it still could not lighten the fact that our government is indeed corrupt, and that the people of the Philippines are still the ones who suffer from this dishonest practice and abuse of power.Let us cite and talk about the extent and some types of coruption discussed by the Anti-Corruption Resource Center online, in their paper “Overview of Corruption and Anti-Corruption in the Philippines”, which listed; Political/ Grand Corruption Although in the surface there is a thriving democracy, the political system of the Philippines is plagued by corruption scandals by officials from different levels- from president to local officials. Corruption is rampant among our elected leaders.
Some are embezzled by public funds that’s why they get “corrupted”, while some, run for office because they want to abuse and they have the knowledge on how to abuse the power which the sovereign people have entrusted to those positions. Making them the “corruptors”. In the setting of elections in the Philippines, though it is the right of every one of the people to run for office, they are discouraged by the fact that it is very costly to run a political campaign which ensures that average citizens could not win the office.And the winner almost always is the one who mobilized more of financial support. And being elected would always be dependent on the rich campaign supporters you could get.
Thus leading to dependence and being more vulnerable to being corrupt. For example, elected officials tend to rely on public funds for re-election. Bureaucratic / Administrative Corruption Similar to grand corruption, special access to the state and local funds is somewhere the local officers of the state can abuse much. It is where the bureaucrats fatten their purses.For example, in an article of the PDI (Jan.
28, 2014) , Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago said that a senator of the Philippines can get up to 1. 4 million pesos of money from allowances, hororaria and etc. Is that not too much to be paying our senators for? Maybe for the good and honest senators, but also for the senators who only go to sessions, sit down, listen, go home and get this money? It is something which is outrageous. How come these guys get to sleep everynight soundly, knowing they have constituents who don’t even have a soft warm bed to lie on, yet they get 1. 4 million pesos just by sitting there, not doing atleast a little bit of work?In the setting in our localities, we have knowledge on how and why our local officials now get to be 2 or 3 times richer after they won the office? Having lots of cars, being able to open lots of businesses, etc.
It is because of flaws in the laws and in the bureaucracy itself. Why can’t one stand up and bring this matter, a matter which is like an elephant in the room, to the courts? Maybe because the courts are also clinging to this dishonest bureacracy.Serving the country through being a public official has been more of a business rather than a duty and responsibility, and we all know this truth. But why has not anyone really pursued a way to stop this madness and dishonesty? Why can’t they be corrupt for the people, and not for themselves? This is a question we should ask ourselves.
Let us not be people who are too lazy to act, but people who are willing to sacrifice for the good of all. For we are the ones who would benefit from this action. We should not leave it to the “next” election, and vote again those we know more so we could atleast vote the “lesser evil”.We should not leave it to the future change makers but we should start now. Let us not dwell in this status quo but let us grow out of it and be much more knowledgeable and better people. The present bureacracy and the rampant dishonesty in the works, abuse of the powers and silence of the people must be broken.
The people should awaken themselves and be more mindful that there is much more we can do to better our lives in this battle against the corruption of the government. Our present leaders must weave a law that would stop this cycle of greed.They could push for reform or start with themselves. But that would be too hard for them.
For once you taste power, it would be so hard to let go. They should make laws that would serve as a net against corruption. And make laws that would further the fight against abuse of public funds by the officials. And even throw in some laws that are anti-political dynasties to help clean the system.
Or we could push for a change in the government, a charter change, or even a change in the constitution to wipe out all of the corruption in the state.
