Forms of corruption

Being a probinsyano and one who likes to stay on a hill close to the clouds, I am probably not updated these days on the diverse ways our politicos use the system to enrich themselves and their buddies. I am coming up with a tentative list, hoping some of my readers here can add more of their own observations. This stock of knowledge should make us more watchful of the ways that bureaucrats practice their devious craft.

Kickbacks, commissions and bribery are probably the most common. The infamous case of lamp posts bought during the Asean Summit in Cebu stands out as one of the worst so far, involving the DPWH, the Cebu provincial government and its engineers and private contractors. That it was recently dismissed by the Sandigan leads us to another fresh angle where high-stakes bribery could be involved.

The PDEA drug case involving the so-called Alabang Boys has faded from the limelight and appears to be lost from the public eye. So have the fertilizers cases involving top officials of the Department of Agriculture. Well, Jocjoc Bolante is being hounded at the Senate, but I suppose he is just a fall guy, a stand-in for somebody bigger or higher in the pecking order. With new scams coming out almost on a daily basis and grabbing the headlines, I would not be surprised if this, too, goes the way of the dinosaurs.

Even in our small city, one smells of smaller scams that do not make headlines, but these are scams nonetheless. It shows in the way contracts for public works are being handed out. Dummies are often selected but they make sure the necessary sand and gravel, steel bars, cement and similar hardware are bought from designated suppliers. Of course, it is difficult to establish evidence of these as transactions are often legal, but you know from the names of the contractors who these people are and who they are beholden to.

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The choice of programs that our bureaucrats follow indicates the kind of mindset inhabiting our local bureaucrats. If this is where money can be made abundantly and reputation built instantly as political capital, then this is how budget is allocated. On the other hand, programs that involve education for the underprivileged, like housing, livelihood and women and children issues take the backseat. After all, these things neither make them rich nor enhance their political capital.

Stealing from government coffers is not always too obvious. It can happen when 15-30 employees get paid for jobs they have not done or sign hours they have not worked for. It shows when too many workers fill up vacancies for non-existent jobs, depriving the constituency of much needed resources for more urgent social projects. It is amply shown when some favored individuals can take their pick for more permanent positions, even if their skills and talents simply don’t match with the job requirements. Or it can happen when the employees make use of government time playing ‘tong-its,’ sleeping and getting drunk – as in the case of some lowly ‘job order’ workers once assigned to work in a tree-planting project near our farm.

I guess corruption is a sickness of the soul, but one that infects and contaminates others as well. It happens because, for one thing, government lacks any ideology and its bureaucrats lack the right attitude of service. Rather it’s this pervasive and all-consuming self-interest that determines how our bureaucrats behave, make the laws and execute them. Generally, these are the sort of people that our ‘righteous warriors’ of the new politics will be confronted with once they themselves assume power. In all likelihood, their righteousness will be tested to the hilt, and they’ll suffer all the more if they have not spelled out their own ideology in clear, concrete terms.

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