CADAO, MARGAUX CHRISTELLE S.

GRADE 12 STEM A

PHILIPPINE CORRUPTION

Since time immemorial, corruption has been rampant in this country. Whoever wants to
sit as the president, their promise will always be to eliminate corruption. Some may have
attempted, but no one succeeded yet. It is an incurable disease that is slowly killing this
country. Corruption is embedded in our history books, maybe even in ancient scriptures.

You may see this as an old problem, but it is a problem that will never age, never dies,
and never go away. Generations and generations had passed, this issue is still alive and
kicking. It is almost like, whoever sits in the government, it is normal to corrupt, and it is in
their culture to steal from the country’s pocket. I wish I could say that we are the only
country who’s battling against it, but there are countless of others. Maybe it is not about the
race, maybe it is about us being a human. According to a famous philosopher, the soul of a
human being is perfect, it is only the body itself that makes it imperfect. The body of the
human being is so weak that, it is quite easy to corrupt it. Humans are corruptible beings.
Corruption roots deep within ourselves that it spreads even through our behavior and doings.
Based on the news portal that I read, almost all government sectors are corrupted. One of the
most corrupted is the national police force, there are reports of local rackets “pangungutong”,
and involvement in supporting or protecting in trafficking of illegal drugs. As someone who
protects peace, and should be a role model, they show a little commitment in their job.

In an anthropological view, people can be observed as corrupt even in the smallest things,
like not returning a change of one peso to your mother, asking your mother 180 pesos instead
of 150, and etc.. We started these little things when we were young, it became a habit to the
point that we could not recognize a simple corruption. We tolerated this habit too much, it
became a culture.

Filipinos have this culture where we give something, may it be food or money, to
someone in return of their help or kindness. In result, the person will then feel kind of
burdened, and have the urge to giveback by doing what the other person wants. We have not
realized that this culture of us has become toxic. These simple things started as innocent, but
later on used as a manipulation tool to let the other party do what you want willingly. The
innocent act of giving back escalated to bribery real quick, and it is a thing. Our society’s
unquenchable hunger for money, made them do hideous things like defrauding the papers to
get money, making a transaction faster if bribed of money, and etc. We are most likely
revolving around money, we are at its hands.

The sad thing about being a Filipino, is that we give in too easily. Maybe this habit dated
back when Filipinos was still colonized. The scar of that era had not been erased totally, it
remained. That scar was turned into a seed, and it was growing inside them, unknowingly
passing it to the generations after that colonial period up until now.

In a political sense, bribery and fraud seems to be a somewhat seen as “diskarte”, if you
want an additional income. An example is when a senator or governor sees or hears that there
is a new project that is yet to be passed to be approved of and supported financially through
the budget, that certain senator will bribe that someone who will pass it to have more or less
20% of the supposed budget, so that that project will be approved easily. Or just like what
Napoles did, she fraud a lot of papers to collect its funds for personal use, and bribe political
figures to approve the papers in exchange of a percentage of the money to be given to them.

President Duterte made it a goal to get rid of corruption from the system, and he was able
to charge a lot of political figures and release them of their positions. But despite Duterte’s
effort in ridding corruption, it was not enough, and it is a tough job. Cleaning the government
system that is crawling with corruption from every nukes and crannies, would probably take
years or decades. Or probably, it will remain as an ambitious dream, every Filipino would
want.