On Corruption 2014

an essay by Roger B Rueda

Any political campaign can only be honest and unpretentious when it goes through the lowest branches of the government agencies. For instance, this maxim ‘kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap’ will remain a meaningless one because no matter how the national government wants to effect the whole government to be corruption-free when  the lower branch of a government agency consists of corrupt people, nothing will follow on: corruption will just get worse instead. That means the president should not trust in them downright. He needs to scrutinise things by himself. He needs to listen to the common people who are directly treated unfairly by these government officials. A website on corruption should be provided, to get wind of their real problems and concerns. Secretaries or undersecretaries of all government agencies should meet people of the region to confer with them, to warrant that no government official in the local level can put their issue out of sight.  That is if this government is really serious about stopping all corruptions in the government. But it seems the eradication of nationwide corruption is just a show, all make-believe, a promotion of favourable image.

A review of the cases handled by NLRC for say the last 15 years can be a gauge to see if indeed corruption doesn’t exist in this agency of the government. A special group of honest lawyers can be commissioned to determine how labour cases have been decided upon by lower NLRC and how possible the arbiters have been bought off. This basis of corruption cannot just be ignored, because this is the only way the cleansing of the local NLRC can be done and put them back to order. I’m sure injustice submerged the rights of thousands of Filipinos in one-sidedness and inequality. But no one will do this because only the just government can do it and will do it. All that we can do is imbibe the maxim ‘kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.’

Almost a year has rolled by since the Typhoon Haiyan whipped some places in the Visayas. Isn’t it disquieting to see on TV that thousands of them do not have respectable housing yet, even with aids from both local and overseas donors? What has taken them so long to provide them housings? This simply establishes how dishonest aside from being useless some people in the government are? And no one can stop them, because even the president himself cannot do something about it. All he can say to them is ‘kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap,’ an idea all the corrupt bureaucrats mock and sneer at – and the poor become poorer as a consequence of this inability of our government to stop corruption, the cause of all inequality and poverty in this country. Soon when this administration is over, I will reminisce about the beauty of the saw, the promise it undertook, the dishonesty it bore in 2010 because it was like a star promised to a gullible lover, who is personified by the illiterate and trusting voters. A lesson to a new administration that they shouldn’t promise something they cannot carry out for the sake of winning the election. A lesson to the voters that anyone cannot be trusted especially when someone promises the eradication of corruption this country.

The most disappointing corruption is on food given to the victims of typhoons. Of late, some people complained they had only received a kilo or two of rice while in some places they got four. This unfair distribution of rice is very annoying: a great deal of rice was unloaded into dumpsites because they turned bitter and unfit to eat; some ready-to-eat food has expired in the warehouses. How come the NFA did it? What can the government say about it? With this, all the NFA officials, I believe, deserve to be sacked. This can only happen when nobody complains about food shortage in this country, when hunger is no longer a concern in our society.

And the BIR. I believe this agency cannot heed any complaints not related to the political foes of this administration. Once we went and saw the officials of this agency in Iloilo City and they promised us to sue the tax evader, but until now the case has not been filed. But look: anything that is related to the Binays is intervened by this agency, as if it really wanted to save this country from the horrible tax evasion concern. Its commissioner seems very active in hunting the tax evaders, who if they didn’t have political colour could just be as unbound and unrestricted as they’d never be poked around. Any political cases filed against anyone can be realistic if cases without political colour are focussed on, too. Well, what can you say about this, President Aquino? I think you need to send your representative or Atty Henares here in Iloilo City, or else I will think you are not serious about what you promised in 2010.

‘Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap’ is imaginable when all the regional offices, provincial offices, and municipal offices of the government agencies have faith in it, when they are directed and monitored by the national government at random or thoroughly.

Well, every region, every province, every city, every town is a kingdom. To stop corruption, the president needs to visit all the kingdoms or send his undisclosed emissaries. He can’t just rely on the papers submitted by the traitors around him. He can’t just be self-assured. He needs to meet the common people at random.

2016 is near and soon the maxim will be weighed up and honoured or scorned.