Can US Amb. Frank Ricciardone expound to Manila correspondents how graft in the Philippine government is driving away investors? He too can. But no amount of ranting and raving by senators and congressmen will make him pack up and leave.
The degree of "interference" in another country’s internal affairs is directly proportional to the envoy’s big stick. But that is not the issue here. The crux of the matter is what the country is doing about the complaint.
Pitt may be slow-footed in dealing with listed firms and investment bankers-cum-stock brokers who fooled thousands of investors worldwide with financial window-dressing. But the US Congress is swiftly moving against them and future carpet-baggers. At least nine firms and dozens of banker-brokers are being investigated by five committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives. Senate Democrats are bent on tougher penalties like jail terms for securities fraud now treated as a civil offense. And President Goerge W. Bush has in effect censured Pitt by moving past him and telling his Cabinet to get tough on corporate finance bigwigs.
In the Philippines, by contrast, it’s just all talk and no action about the age-old problems of government corruption and ineptitude. As the retiring Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Dagupan says, "Graft has been a big concern since I was born, and that was in the ’30s. What have we done about it?"
Nothing that would make a dent, really. A succession of Presidents have formed all sorts of commissions and special offices to study and fight red tape, bribery and extortion. Similarly a succession of Congresses have passed laws to penalize little mulcters and big plunderers. There’s even a special Article in the Constitution on Accountability of Public Officers. Yet an estimated P50 billion is lost to theft and incompetence every year.
That money could have been used to build hundreds of hospitals, reforest thousands of hectares, buy millions of books. Corrupt and inept officials spent them instead on silly office uniforms, on flashy cars that serve no purpose for national development, and on land in California that only drained dollar reserves.
The problem is not in the lack of laws or antigraft officers. There’s a law on plunder, a nonbailable offense that warrants the death sentence for stealing at least P50 million through a series or combination of criminal acts. There are statutes on bribery, extortion, falsification of documents, and corruption that broadly includes transactions that are "grossly and manifestly disadvantageous to the government interest." There’s a Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees that requires them to be courteous at the very least and to file an annual statement of assets and liabilities. There’s an Ombudsman who can investigate and prosecute all government officials from the President down, and who has deputized watchdogs in each government office. Yet the thievery and incompetence goes on because of soft enforcement.
Why does jueteng thrive, if not for police and local officials who are on the take? How did shabu addiction grow into a narcopolitical scourge, if not for elective officials who raise dirty money for campaign overspending? Why do kidnapping and petty cellphone snatchings go on, if not for direct involvement of uniformed men, or police discretion to turn gangmen into supposed "assets"?
Lawyers in government can be the craftiest, thus the worst types of officials. Knowing the law and its many contradictory procedures, they throw cases involving millions of pesos in taxpayers’ money by simply writing a bad legal brief or letting a deadline lapse. All in exchange for a car or a lot or a check.
The problem has grown so grave that corruption is covered up by more corruption. The millions of pesos used to feed the attacking Erap loyalists at Malacañang in May 2001 couldn’t have come anymore from businessmen donating to a potential presidential winner, but from political supporters who dipped their fingers in the public till. But they were spared from any sniffing of the money trail, just as they were spared of rebellion raps.
Government managers are required to review the performance of their subordinates each year. Yet the evaluation is done as routinely as filing papers. Thus, underproductive personnel rise to positions where they do more damage to the bureaucracy.
Too many times, public officials and employees are just made to resign quietly instead of being fired and criminally charged for corruption and incompetence. The excuse is to spare their innocent families from the embarrassing publicity. But what better deterrent is there, aside from jail terms and potential unemployment, than relatives disowning a grafter and friends shunning him?
Eufemio Domingo, a former chairman of the Commission on Audit and the Presidential Commission Against Graft and Corruption, once said that Filipinos hate grafters but are thrilled with having them grace their parties. They beg those who have illegally enriched themselves to serve as wedding sponsors or to please drop by their birthday bash. That’s because the characters are not taken to court, where the gory process and proceeds of their theft could be exposed for public ridicule.
Corruption per se scares away investors. A businessman would rather throw his money in a country with a level playing field than where expensive connections matter. But the effects of corruption also form part of the businessman’s decision-making. Are the air and water clean, or don’t officials care if garbage clogs streets and rivers because they’re busy making money from big environment contracts? Are streets safe or full of thugs because the police are busy playing pusoy-dos in their precincts? Are the youth educated and healthy, therefore employable and can afford to buy goods, or ignorant and sickly because their parents had spent most of their income on jueteng and drugs?
These are what Ricciardone has probably noted in his first few weeks as ambassador. This is what politicians have promised – but failed – to cure for decades.
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