Fighting graft and corruption

NO HOLDS BARRED
Ike Señeres

The first step in fighting a war is to know the enemy. So much has been said about fighting corruption, but do we really know the enemy? My teacher Fr. Herb Schneider taught me that there are two sides to this equation. Graft on one hand is the wrongdoing of public officials, while corruption on the other hand is the wrongdoing of the corruptors who allow or assist the grafters in perpetuating their wrongdoings.

So who is the enemy then? I would say that the enemy is both, but if we say that we will only be fighting corruption, that will not defeat the enemy if we do not do anything to fight or stop the grafters inside the government. But what if we are the enemy ourselves? Meaning we, the people who allow or assist the grafters in continuing to do what they are doing?

The Liberal Party (LP) says that if there is no corruption, there is no poverty. Knowing that they have good economists in their party, they probably know that what they said is simply just a campaign slogan, because corruption and poverty are two separate forces that could influence each other, but not absolutely. In other words, even without corruption there could still be poverty, and even without poverty, there could still be corruption.

By comparison however, the campaign slogan of the LP is more grounded on the truth than the slogan of the Nationalista Party (NP) claiming that they could put an end to poverty. I am sure that the NP also has their own good economists, at least good enough to know that there will always be people who will fall below the poverty line, even if the government gives welfare support to everyone.

But not to dissuade the LP, I think that they would be doing the people a good service if they could really reduce both graft and corruption, even if they could not totally eradicate it.

They could be aiming for the sky if they will target the total eradication of graft and corruption, just like the NP who made the promise of totally eradicating poverty. I just hope however that the LP will know the difference between poverty alleviation and poverty reduction, two separate goals that have confused the past administrations.

To start with the basics, the LP should no longer make the mistake of delivering basic public services, presenting these as their poverty alleviation programs. The left leaning forces have already denounced this as a farce, saying that the delivery of public services is a function or a duty that the government has to do anyway, and it should not be misrepresented as the programs to address poverty alleviation.

During the height of the debates about globalization, the government was also criticized for misrepresenting the delivery of infrastructure as forms of “safety nets”, basing it on the same argument that the building infra is a function or duty of the government anyway. As the present administration is on its way out, it is again highlighting their delivery of infra as an achievement, even if it was something that they had to do anyway.

Presidential front runner Noynoy Aquino has made a campaign promise to take us away from the broken road of corruption. I think that the first step that he has to take is to decide the kind of leadership that he is going to install in the agencies of government. Is he going to assign political appointees down to the Section Chief level, or is he going to revive and strengthen the career service by naming political appointees only to the cabinet level, and nowhere else down below?

According to the rules of the Civil Service, the only political appointee should only be the cabinet level Department Secretary and everyone else below him, from the level of the Undersecretaries all the way down to the Section Chief level should be career officials. I think that this is going to be a make or break decision for Noynoy, because this decision will determine whether he will be able to reduce corruption in the bureaucracy or not.

I am not saying that all the political appointees in the past administrations are corrupt, and I am not saying either that all career officials are not corrupt. I am saying however that political appointees would tend more to become corrupt, since they have co-terminus appointments that would expire as their patrons would go out of office. By expectation, career officials are not supposed to become corrupt, but they too could become corrupt if they see that their leaders above them are taking the broken path.

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