THAT was demonstrably a harsh judgment on the Filipino character when Presidential Legal Counsel Merceditas Gutierrez declared that the people regard corruption nowadays as a "way of life."
But Ms. Gutier-rez who is a former secretary of the Justice Department and now concurrently head of the presidential anti-corruption council, may just have used the statement as a hyperbole, as it were, to emphasize her own disgust over the reported rampant graft and corruption in the public service.
She expressed dismay that acquisition of wealth through corruption is often flaunted as "prelude to respectability."
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What is seriously disturbing is the observation that corrupt officials use their ill-gotten wealth as means of ingratiating themselves in respectable circles of social reformers, which results in most cases in their elevation to positions of leadership in legitimate socio-civic organizations.
Because of studied cunning and pretensions, they project themselves as men and women of high principles which, more often than not, win them awards for their supposed benevolence and humanitarian impulse.
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"Today, as long as you’re rich and display your largesse frequently enough," Secretary Gutierrez observed, "almost automatically you’re deemed to be openhearted and supportive of the community."
She bewailed that no critical thought is given as to how such people acquired their riches and whether their refined manners were pretenses to mask the kind of greedy persons that they really are.
Corruption has been a hot issue in the Philippines but despite the creation of various anti-corruption agencies, no headway has been made to really curb it; on the contrary, reports of ill-gotten wealth of civil servants continue to escalate.
The Philippines, as by now is notoriously known, has been named the second most corrupt government in Asia.
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At the Conference of Southeast Asia Parliamentarians against Corruption last week, Senator Edgardo Angara who represents the Asian region in the executive committee of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians against Corruption, admitted the failure of the government in making steady progress in the fight against graft.
But he rejected the Asian Development Bank anti-corruption initiative for a trial advocacy for the Philippines for its failure to provide effective communication program for the legislature, judiciary, and the executive branches of the government.
The program must also make a study of the political culture of the country, he said, which to my mind is correct because the conduct of business, government, and the professions varies from culture to culture.
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In her speech at the SEAPAC conference, Secretary Gutierrez proposed for a national action plan on corruption but explained the need for the government to make it clear to the public the evils of corruption.
What we really need is to develop a national culture of rejection of corruption, for graft in all its form to elicit a strong public indignation.
