Corruption and Elections

By Gina Dizon

With elections already around the corner, it would be worthwhile taking a look at the platform of the candidates how they deal with the issue of corruption. While corruption has already become a stale issue which gets repeated over and over again, corruption becomes a fresh issue when the country gets recorded as the most corrupt in Asia.

Considered as the most corrupt country based on a study by Hongkong – based consultancy group Political and Economic Risk Council (PERC), Philippines leads 13 countries in the Asian continent. The survey considered Thailand and Indonesia as the second most corrupt in their economy. The cleanest are the more developed countries, Hongkong and Singapore where the Philippines’ thousands of citizens flock as domestic helpers.

The study noted the low turn out of the country due to the unsuccessful prosecution of the plunder charges brought against former President Joseph Estrada amounting to P4 billion in pay offs for gambling operations, tobacco tax kickbacks and concessions. Charges against President Gloria Arroyo for electoral fraud and corruption also remains unheeded, the study says.

While the accused is subjected to a trial before being adjudged guilty or innocent, allegations simultaneously sets the lingering question of accountability of public officials. It is public knowledge that irregularities happen in the smallest to the top-most unit of the government in varying degrees and shades of corruption. It happens in the smallest transaction of the purchase of a Vitamin A tablet to scandalous transactions of millions of money in contract works and concessions.
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One among other many allegations of corruption include the anomalous collection of quarrying fees collected in the jurisdiction of Pampanga Governor Mark Lapid, among other allegations of graft perpetrated by other government officials.

It is a welcome thought though that the Sandiganbayan has recently affirmed the conviction of two officials of the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC) in Region 11 of graft charges in connection with the alleged illegal confiscation and disposal of P116 million worth of properties belonging to the Asset Privatization Trust.

And while the lifestyle check of the Bureau of Customs and Internal Revenue sets a strong warning to other officials not to illegally amass wealth, a stricter and more systematic monitoring of government offices and officials is needed to curb corruption from the lower to the highest government unit including its quasi departments. It would be worthwhile taking a look at our 37 year old Asian neighbor, Bangladesh.

Bangladesh, while it is one of the least developed countries is also internationally recorded as the third most corrupt country in the world. With the recent assumption of the Caretaker Government to manage the affairs of the State before its national elections take place, it is undertaking serious initiatives to improve its internal systems. This sets another example to be replicated in other countries with infamous records of corruption.

The recent arrest of Tarique Rahman, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Senior Joint Secretary General and son of Prime Minister Zia Khaleda, indicates the earnest direction of the Caretaker Government to clean up the country’s image of corruption. Charges of extortion have been filed against the prime minister’s eldest son. This endeavor takes on even more promising examples of top 50 officials in government suspected of corruption being currently arrested, detained and accordingly charged. No one of the suspected corrupt officials can be a candidate in the country’s upcoming elections without his assets checked, in accordance to his capacity.

While this happens, the campaign trail in the country (Philippines) has began. No one has yet made a strong campaign against corruption. This means no one has yet made a strong campaign to improve the economy of the country and the people as well.
(Printed, April 1-7,2007, Northern Philippine Times)


Easter and Elections
By Gina Dizon

Easter falls in spring when flowers bloom, the new year begins, and signifies a season of merry making and optimism.

It is in spring when the festive Mardi Gras in New Orleans is in full swing, Rio de Janeiro’s Carnival is made ecstatic , Baguio’s Panagbenga is in cheery bloom, Adivasi’s Baha (Flower) Festival in Bangladesh is in high spirits, and many of town fiestas in the country are celebrated during this festive season of the year.

The start of the election period in the country happen also in spring. Politicians with their own dose of promises for better roads and schools want the electorate to believe in a better life when the vote –wooing (and buying) political wanna be’s get elected into office.

Those who enacted the law that elections will happen in May 14 with the 45 campaign period must have been thinking of spring and what it signifies.

Spring is a season of a promising future.

Come every election period in the country which happens in the early months of the year, the dazzling posters and promising words of aspiring politicians seemingly speak of a better life for Filipinos. Unfortunately, the promise of a new life however has not moved significantly better come election after election since the country gained its independence in 1898.

Millions of Filipinos still continue to work in other countries as overseas contract workers doing menial jobs like domestic work in developed countries year in year out. Washing dishes has become an international demand by rich people from rich countries to hire a maid to do the work. The Philippines with its rich source of human resource has a ready supply of teachers and college graduates who become maids. Aside from domestic helpers who flock to Hongkong and the Middle East, the country sends off construction workers, truck drivers, seamen, nurses, caregivers, chambermaids etc to other developed countries including the US and the UK.

Yet, the country doesn’t have to gain a reputation as a supplier of domestic helpers if it is economically able to hold its people and make the country great with its skilled and knowledgeable human resource. The problem is, our skilled and educated citizens go abroad and scrub the toilets of rich people in rich nations in order for them to earn the dough and be able to send a child to school or make a better life for their families.

And so it goes that millions of Filipinos are still mired in poverty to make both ends meet come election after every election period.

The National Statistical Coordination Board reveals that 40% of the country’s populace are living below the poverty line coming from 30.6 million Filipinos or 6.12 million families throughout the country's 78 provinces, 84 cities or 41,940 barangays.

Of P14,866 annual per capita poverty threshold for 2007, the amount of P9,987 is for food while the difference of 4,880 is for non-food needs. Of the ten provinces with the highest poverty threshold, nine are in Luzon and one in Mindanao with NCR recording the highest at P19,345. NCR is followed by Abra, Cavite, Batangas, Bulacan, Pampanga, Rizal, Mt Province, Nueva Ecija, Davao del Norte and Benguet.

Ten provinces (three in Luzon, six in Visayas and one in Mindanao) have the lowest poverty thresholds in 2007 with Siquijor registering the lowest at P11,663, NCSB notes.
Poverty in the Philippines is most acute and widespread in rural areas with poverty incidence rates of 21.5% in urban areas to 50.7% rate in rural areas.
Corruption, it cannot be denied is one major culprit in an imbalanced rich-poor proportion of the country’s populace. It continues to suck the country’s income for the powerful and the rich and heightens economic depravity among most of the country’s marginalized and deprived people.

The more impoverished a country is, the higher its practice of corruption. Obviously, unequal distribution of wealth and lack of resources, services, and economic opportunities for the mass of people, continue to perpetrate. And with the country being the most corrupt in Asia, poverty gets more enhanced, and the country’s image gets more stinky as ever.

Lack of responsive government continue to perpetuate among the country’s leading politicians most of whom are comfortable elites and have traditionally played the role of patrons and benefactors, relying on the pork barrel or ill-gotten wealth to buy votes. And with the penchant of Filipinos for “utang na loob”, what is objective is muddled with the personal perception of being perpetually indebted to a benefactor at the expense of pro-people, rational and better economic and political systems.

Elected (and even appointed) officials who are bound to truly represent and advocate the interests of their constituents remains wanting. Come May 14 elections is another round of sweetly packaged and obsolete promises of a new life for Juan de la Cruz.

And among Christians who compose some 90% of the country’s 75 million population, making the May 14 elections truly meaningful and responsive for a better life remains to be a prayer this Easter Sunday. (Printed, Northern Philippine Times, April 8-14, 2007)