Corruption & poverty: P.Noy's greatest challenges

 P.Noy’s inaugural speech was not just refreshing but was so inspiring to some extent. Though it may sound no different from the usual rhetoric an incoming president does, the speech was delivered by a leader who chose not just to be among us but to serve us. We are his bosses, P.Noy so declared. 

Indeed, P.Noy’s selection of words in his inaugural speech was impeccable and the delivery was simply perfect. However, no matter how impeccable the choices were, and how perfect it was delivered, the fact remains that the entire nation looks up to him not just for a day. Rhetoric, well-rehearsed at that, will always be right and appropriate. Seeing it realized, however, needs strong commitment and wider participation.

Truth be told, he can’t do it alone. While it is true that he will be tapping the best and the brightest among his peers for cabinet positions, he will soon realize that he will be working with men and women he never picked. These are men and women where some of whom may have been voted unethically by his fellow countrymen to their respective offices. These are men and women who must have well-enhanced their acting prowess and financial might and obtained their positions expensively. Undeniably, some of them are known snooty and have tended to be accommodating. Some were condemned tightfisted but suddenly became so generous last election. 

The fact was, in the just concluded national election, all these style-changing approaches were so compelling for these men and women who had been in it or have yet to squeeze themselves curiously into a messy world of entertainment we call politics, or distinctively, our brand of politics. They were into a kind of politics that is totally dirty from beginning to end, where every coveted position has a price tag. Consequently, therefore, anyone who had the money to afford it, surely, got it. Obviously, it was a kind of politics where the politicians’ willingness to dangle millions was the main determinant. Consequently, as they part with it, they shall be equally determined to get it back, of course, with profits.  

Certainly, P.Noy must already be aware as to how these crooks get them back. There are countless of ways, though but, absolutely, not from their salaries. Frankly, they can’t live with salaries alone. Such countless of ways are the primary reasons of our being undisputedly on top of every corruption survey and despondently, at the bottom of every poverty incidences survey.

To recall, a little over a year ago, the country was in the limelight when the World Bank released debilitating news about the debarment of seven firms and an individual for “engaging in collusive practices under a major Bank-financed roads project in the Philippines”. The World Bank’s investigating team “uncovered evidence of a major cartel involving local and international firms bidding on contracts under phase one of the Philippines National Roads Improvement and Management Program, known as NRIMP 1”.

In this fiasco, the nationalities of entities and individuals involved are singled out as Filipinos and Chinese. This disclosure never came as a surprise. Global surveys in the past have ranked us and China as two of the worst on malpractices. There are two (2) significant surveys that we can deal with. The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the Bribe Payers Index (BPI) of Transparency International (TI). TI defines corruption as “the abuse of public office for private gain”. In the same breath, bribery is defined as “undocumented extra payments”, made purposely to gain favors.

The 2007 CPI survey, which ranked countries from 1 to 179 with no. 1 as the cleanest, revealed that RP is in the 131st, a cellar dweller. If there is a consolation, it is just because we are a few notches higher than the politically unstable African countries like, Somalia and Chad and the war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Iraq.

The 2006 BPI survey, on the other hand is “a ranking of thirty (30) of the leading exporting countries according to the propensity of firms with headquarters within their borders to bribe when operating abroad”. To determine the “international supply-side of bribery”, as part of the World Economic Forum’s Executive Opinion Survey 2006, several business executives from 125 countries were asked questions about the business practices of foreign firms operating in their country. They were first asked to identify the country of origin of foreign-owned companies doing most business in their country and were then asked: “In your experience, to what extent do firms from the countries you have selected make undocumented extra payments or bribes?”

This survey revealed that of the thirty top exporting countries, China (at no. 29) is just a shade better than India (at no. 30) as the countries where headquartered firms have high propensity to offer or make undocumented extra payments or bribes to win contracts.

Apparently, with these businessmen coming from countries (Philippines and China) with cultures of malfeasances and malpractices coupled with our kind of politicians who are looking for ways to recover every penny spent during elections, honest biddings will never happen. As usual, they shall be active participants in a collusive scheme designed to establish bid prices at artificial and non-competitive levels. Consequently, they deprived us the benefits of free and open competition. As a result, the poorest of the poor who are really wanting that much needed economic boost continue to suffer out of substandard and overpriced projects. Worst, our taxpayers shall pay for a sizable portion of the loan that went to someone else pockets.

Such is the sad reality of our kind of politics. A kind of politics that is mainly money-driven. Where ordinary men from nowhere initially presented themselves to the people for service and became powerful businessmen once elected. Or men who are already successful businessmen in their own right and run either to protect their interests or widen them.

Moreover, P.Noy promised to look into the plight of our farmers. Reeling from a multimillion fertilizer scam, he promised to provide security to the farmers. This promise is not as easy to fulfill as finding words for a great oratory. The fact is, most farmers are beneficiaries of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). There is no denying that the processes involving the transfers of ownership of the land they till are graft-ridden too. The lead agency, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), though well-funded hasn’t done so much. DAR is incompetent.   Their incompetence and corrupt practices are so pronounced in unliquidated advances amounting to PhP1,471,392,800 and payments to alleged consultants of PhP646.5 million in 2006 alone. Whatever these consultants brought to this program, we are not aware of. What was obvious is, on top of this disbursement, DAR also paid PhP16.4 million in professional fees on the same year. 

Clearly, therefore, in fulfilling his promises, he has to deal squarely with crooks who got elected into office; with unscrupulous government career officials who continued to prey on hapless citizens; and with a rotten system these men and women continued to comfortably adhere.

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