ShareThis
by Arnold De Villa
December 18, 2010
Sometime back, an old issue of “The Week” included an article from “The Philippine Star” as one of its best international articles for that week. “The Week” reaches at least 425,000 readers, overshadowing the base of “Time” magazine”, a much older peer with 362,361 subscribers. “The Philippine Star” editorial was then exposed to a wider audience in a publication that is about to attract many if not most of the readers in America.
Although the editorial caption from “The Philippine Star” earned the best space on a page of “The Week’s”, the content is not at all the best news we would want to know or anything we could be proud of. It mentioned that the Philippine National Police routinely extort money from motorists. It says that even when driving at the speed limit, it is still possible to be pulled over, be threatened with a traffic citation unless there were cash clipped with our license.
For those of us who learned driving in the cramped maze of Manila’s asphalt jungles, this news is no news. We have been so conditioned to this that we have callously accepted it as part of a stinted culture. Behind this is a sad explanation that dominates the reality of the Philippine setting. Many cops live below the poverty line, unable to provide a decent shelter for their own families.
This portion of the article reprinted by “The Week” is the tail of a heading entitled “How Corrupt Cops make Food More Expensive”. The large portion I did not mention states that the favorite target of these cops’ extra source of revenue are truck drivers who deliver food from suppliers to grocery stores. Many of them have made it as part of their normal cost, indirectly transferred to the pockets of the starved Philippine consumer.
Poverty is an evil reality, not intended to coexist with man’s existence. We should remedy the fact that poverty entered history through natural calamities yet remained because of human avarice, greed, sloth and an abnormal sense of entitlement. When there is poverty, the gravity of a wrong doing changes its face and the legal definition of corruption is somewhat blurred by the need to survive. Although cops are the universal icons for the execution of the law, they are unlike gargoyles that guard the portals of a peaceful existence. Just like any member of the animal kingdom, our friendly cop also needs to eat. When his family is hungry and his employer does not pay him a fair wage, his last resort falls into an anomalous transfer of wealth through direct solicitations from those who cross his path. From there, the vicious cycle roams around, spreading its roots deep in a system blinded by its own sense of scarcity and deprivation.
In the Philippines, the ability to drive a private vehicle is not a common occurrence. More than often, it is considered a status of someone slightly above the average economic hierarchy. Public utility vehicle drivers are backed up by owners assumed to belong to an even higher ladder of the economic chain. Curving into their assets through the hands of the law is apparently a lesser evil than the outright plunder of bank assets (many of them insured) through robberies performed directly or indirectly involving military personnel. This latter is even a lesser evil than the systemic day to day theft of taxpayer’s hard earned income through the accepted practice of bribery among government officials involved in large government contracts and purchasing activities. And of course, this is nothing compared to the complicated schemes and scams of Philippine Government Executives extremely skilled in siphoning international funds and investments through their own private and personal accounts. The pyramid goes on, building an evil structure of despondency and vice, plunging down its victims into a pool of senseless pain and death.
Nonetheless, we are not without a “Good Samaritan”. Filipinos are still blessed with a sizeable proportion of philanthropists and generous souls willing to depart from their wealth upon the emergence of a justified need. There are many amongst us who have done noble deeds in uplifting the dire conditions of our fellowmen in our old Philippine neighborhood. Unfortunately, besides movements like the housing initiatives of Gawad Kalinga”, we are still quite primitive in setting up efficient systems to reallocate our wealth and rebalance the scales between those who thrive in excess and those who suffer from the deprivation of basic human needs. There are cracks filled with critters in need of reformation, education and transformation. When these three factors are properly bundled up, then perhaps we could jump start a revised Philippine history through a much needed cultural revolution, an indispensable ingredient for an economic evolution.
As clichés would state, “we are what we eat” and “we are what we read”. To that I add, “we are what we think” and “we become what we hope for”. And also, “we believe what we value” so “we grow according to what we believe”. One chain follows another not necessarily in the order of the best, the worst and the most. In fact, with all the thwarted weeds and perversions infused in the Philippine mind set, it is actually a challenge to claim the clarity of any moral aphorisms, much less a guilt-free political statement. The sense of order is almost like an insurmountable peak to climb.
Corrupt cops in the Philippines do not make food more expensive. On the contrary, expensive food forces cops to work through corruption. But in a country blessed with fertile land and a favorable climate for crop production, it seems odd that our people suffer from the global surge of food prices. It seems strange that we need to import rice, sugar and other commodities. And it seems so hard to believe that more and more Filipino families are suffering from hunger.
The Christmas Season is a time that we can have a chance to temporarily halt this hunger, a moment when corruption could somewhat be placated through good deeds. As we load our gastric juices with lipids and sugar, rip the lovely boxes of gifts apart, and while we stare at the twinkling bulbs we installed the other day, it would be nice to recall the less fortunate and do something to remind them that there are still good people who care.
Corruption is not an intrinsic part of the Philippine culture. Although it has been a mainstay in our system, it is not a defining trait of the Filipino people. Poverty that arises from corruption can be smothered through spontaneous acts of kindness and through organized efforts of altruism. This is the season that we can perhaps do a little bit more. It is the thought that searches for the purity of Christmas, the real birth of goodness. Merry Christmas!