Breaking the Grip of Corruption: Our Captured Culture’s Penultimate Effort to Promote, Protect and Fulfill Human Rights
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
on the Occasion of the First Integrity and Human Rights Conference
Manila, Philippines,
27 January 2009
Keynote Speech delivered by
LEILA M. DE LIMA
Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines
My co-workers in the public sector, our friends in the private sector, distinguished speakers, members of the diplomatic community, our partners in civil society, the academe and the media, ladies and gentlemen:
Good morning!
Today's event is truly a momentous occasion, a moment where we as one people undertake the critical shift of paradigms in the seemingly endless struggle on two fronts – the struggle to squelch rabid corruption and the struggle to vigilantly uphold and protect human rights.
For many years, the problem of corruption had always been viewed as a bane to economic freedom, an impediment to free market capitalism and a black mark on the investment environment of the country. It had been viewed almost solely as hindrance to economic growth and progress, the perennial aspiration of all developing nations such as ourselves. Corruption has been seen only as an inconvenient yet unavoidable factor in bureaucratic transactions, a sinful habit that attends the ordinary course of enterprise and regulation.
Ironically, as much material and academic discourse had been poured into the evils of corruption, it is still viewed, impliedly or otherwise, as not only necessary, but more poignantly, ordinary.
Yet, as ordinary as corruption is to our jaded existence, in spite of the known malady that it brings, we find ourselves in that curiously awkward and exquisitely pained middle ground of neither denouncing it nor embracing it. When we speak to our children, we are careful never to elaborate on the real character of “real world” transactions – always sure to underscore the values of honesty and integrity in their naïve lives. We teach our law students, for example, what the law says, the essence behind legislative fiat, the ethics of the legal profession, and yet we never tell them that they cannot survive in practice without sacrificing and compromising some measure of the very values we inculcate in them during their years at school. What happens in law school is replicated in varying deviations across all classrooms, across different disciplines, across every level of education, to children of people from all walks of life.
We are neither here nor there. For everything that had transpired in our history as a nation, we have never come to grips with our languid stance on corruption. Though it is corruption precisely that had driven us to expel two presidents no less, it is the same corruption that we had so sadly conceded to time and again after the revolutions.
All along, while our efforts had focused on expelling presidents and engaging in protracted congressional hearings, anti-corruption euphoria had overlooked one crucial feature of corruption – it infects more than just our government. It infects nearly all aspects of our lives, drawing in more players than we are willing to admit. It includes not just the bureaucracy, but the private sector as well. It affects not only transaction costs, but opportunity costs on so many levels. Every person's large or small contribution to a widespread culture of corruption adds to an ever-expanding gap between those who can secure rent and those who cannot, a perpetuation of the decline of budgetary allocation into education and health while public works and military spending increase with the growing ease of securing kickbacks. The result of years of overlooking these features had led us into our quagmire now – the poor are less educated, have less access to health and economic opportunity, and therefore, are less able to uplift themselves from their own poverty. Their right to adequate services, their right to justice and development continues to be denied not just by a government that is seen to be corrupt, but a culture that fosters corruption.
And all the while, we've been witch-hunting! Who in the DOJ, in the PDEA is at fault in the Alabang Boys case; who in the SBMA and the DENR is responsible for the cutting of protected forests in Subic Bay; who in the Executive Department had been responsible for the Fertilizer Scam and the ZTE deal. The more we hunt, the reality is that the more we must examine ourselves. The more we seek revolutions, the more we must seek change in ourselves.
What we need now is not just another revolution. We need a revolution that upstages all previous revolutions – one that not only changes the configuration of political power, but one that changes the Filipino psyche. We need to put an end to our habit of openly denouncing corruption, then surreptitiously consenting to it. Many of us here are guilty of this.
The 1st Integrity and Human Rights Conference is NOT our first attempt at characterizing corruption as more than a problem of economic progress. We did not stage a revolt in 1986 because the Philippines was slowly being left behind by our Asian neighbors in terms of economic growth. We did stage a revolt because wages were not enough, purchasing power was falling, jobs were scarce, we felt no security, and more importantly friends and family members remained detained, free speech and assembly was squelched, positive change was desperately needed. We did not stage a revolt post the 1997 Asian financial crisis because of a flagging economy. It was staged because of the sentiment that the right of the people to know the truth was being systematically denied, that corrupt practice and nepotism was rampant and that which the people deserved but did not get – a government that fostered equal opportunity and an equitable distribution of wealth did not exist. NONE of the reasons for igniting a revolution was purely based on the increased transactional costs or festering rent-seeking or impaired economic progress. The reasons for revolt are those things that a people may demand from their government – rights that everyone can assert. The revolts were not purely crisis of economy, as corruption is often portrayed as instigating, but a humanitarian crisis at its core. It is a crisis, not only on the realm of economic progress and business climate, but a crisis in the broad and all-encompassing field of human development and human rights.
At its very core, corruption is not just an inconvenient requisite to bureaucratic transactions. It is a very serious violation of human rights. This statement is the reason we are here today – to instill in your minds, for you to instill in the minds of your subordinates, to instill in the minds of their children and your children, and your children's children: corruption is a violation of human rights.
Originally, this conference had been scheduled for December, right around the time that the world had been commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The timing could not have been more perfect to drive home the significant relationship between human rights as a whole and the UN Convention Against Corruption, or the UNCAC.
The storied history of the development of human rights sheds a brighter light on our current struggle to combat corruption. From the very first spark in the minds of subjugated ancient peoples that their oppression was not an inevitably perpetual condition, the moment that their current condition was seen as an affliction, that serf, slaves, conquered nations, laborers, women, farmers, pariahs all believed that there could be no inevitability except to live in dignified existence, that is when the seeds of human rights had been sown. The most prolific of revolutions, the French Revolution, set the stage for revolutions for the masses, for the proletariat and for ordinary people throughout the world. It had been studied meticulously for generations, as it is studied today, just as our own national heroes had arduously sown the seeds of human rights in our people.
Human rights had taken a dramatic turn only when the human race had reached a tipping point – a second world war that would decimate countries, almost half of a generation lost on the war front, in different theaters of conflict across the planet. Fathers, brothers, sons lost over land and sea, six million men, women and children belonging to stateless nation of Jews exterminated in concentration camps, countries around the world annexed in the name of war, culminating in the surrender of the last antagonists following the haunting moment of two whole cities, including their populations, vaporized by the power of atomic energy.
What, then, in all of this, pushed mankind to carve in stone the value of human life? What is the seminal moment for the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
It was at the moment where mankind had seen its own, most grotesque face, through the most atrocious of acts directed at his fellow man, in the name of race, ultra-nationalism, alliances, in the name of status quo or change, peace or progress, in the name of saving life by ironically, taking life. It was in this furious backdrop of war, pillage, encroachment, racism, extermination and murder that man had to accept what had become of man so that we could draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so that not only war atrocities, but all atrocities, against the dignity of man can be stamped out.
Our courageous struggle against corruption and the battle for integrity and accountability, transparency and trust, derives many lessons from the development of the seminal document on human rights. It is in the comparison between the histories of human rights and corruption that we hope to deliver this new paradigm, this new revolution that upstages any past revolution in the name of integrity.
Corruption is as old as civilization, as old as the notion of private gain and the notion of greed. It is defined as the misuse of power entrusted for the purpose of private gain. At the point in human history that hierarchies had emerged in social systems, that taxation and collective wealth gave birth to personal wealth, corruption had been born. It had afflicted ancient civilizations of China and Rome, the Persians and Greek empires.
In our own brief history as a nation, it had afflicted us in the colonial rule of the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese. Our claim to fame as one of the first colonies to gain independence had also given rise to the first indigenous democracy infected with corruption. It had been with us from the Commonwealth, the Republics that had followed, and it is still with us now.
When sociologists seek the cultural thread of corruption in our country, they speak of a cultural fabric sown with the notions of a padrino-culture, utang na loob, bahala ka na, sponsors and favors – all very well entrenched in our psyche and our culture, and very, very old. From the most notorious forms of corruption, such as the customary 20% kickback on government contracts to the most minute such as unjustified color-coding exemptions, and all the examples in between, illustrate not only the pervasiveness of corruption, but its seemingly natural place in our culture.
In human rights, it took the most horrific of events abridged into the first half of the 20th century to bring mankind into self-reflection on what had become of ourselves, imperialists in the name of colonialism and benevolent assimilation, war-mongers in the name of national security and preemptive strike, killers, butchers of the name of life, liberty and freedom of every man. Yet the critical moment had not come at self-reflection. It had not come at self-assessment. It had not come at knowing what had become of our humanity. The true flash point came at self-acceptance, when the world had proverbially looked at itself in the mirror and pointed at itself as the culprit. When the world accepted that it had become a monstrosity in spite of the highest values it held sacred, that was the time that these values had emerged in the form of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For corruption, had we reached a flash point? It seems that yes, we have. But it isn't today. It was nearly 23 years ago. Again, a tipping point appeared in 2001. But appearances are deceiving. As enormous as the uproar was in 1986 and 2001, I am not sure we had truly reached the tipping point. Why, then, are we here today, only beginning to embark on some grandly envisioned plan to eliminate corruption once and for all? Why is this only the FIRST integrity and human rights conference? Why is the struggle for integrity and the battle against corruption old but not obsolete? Why is it passé and trite but thoroughly present in our time?
Today's conference is ground-breaking but only on the condition that we cross the same threshold that faced our grandparents’ generation at the end of the last world war – the threshold of accepting what had become of us, what had become of ALL of us.
For so long, corruption and the crusade against it had centered on the bureaucracy, the government. Without any surprise, government is well-represented in this conference. We have the Ombudsman, the Military, the PNP, the LGUs and even the PEZA representatives to discuss anti-corruption and the measures that are being undertaken.
Yet, our characterization of corruption as a hallmark of the government and the bureaucracy, is itself passé. Ask any college-aged student, and many will tell you that, given a choice, they will not work for government because it reeks of corruption, that their cherished Catholic School-values will be threatened and eroded until they themselves become no different from the government they eye so suspiciously. Yet, the same children who will grow up and enter the real world and find out for themselves the falsity of their insulated education. They will find out that corruption is everywhere. In this day and age, for our children NOT to know this early that corruption is more rampant than what they imagine, is to mislead them.
Corruption is no exception from any elegant economic theory of supply and demand. While we have focused so much on the supply-side of corruption, there is very little in the Filipino collective psyche about the demand-side. There is very little thought given to the two-way street, the two-to-tango relationship that characterizes corruption. Private interest or business has an equally, and sometimes even greater, interest in perpetuating the cycle of corruption. Refer back to college-aged students – they simply do not know that the private sector is itself as immersed in corruption as the government is.
This is part of that awkward middle ground upon which we stand on – to tell our children to steer clear of corruption, but not tell them that it is everywhere. To feel indignation at the latest news of another government cover-up, but not to feel indignation when we ourselves give in to corruption. To simply tell our children that it is everywhere, and then to be upstanding in the face of it, makes a whole world of difference.
To simply tell our children, to tell ourselves that corruption is everywhere, and then to be upstanding in the face of it... this is our threshold, this is the acceptance, the true flash point that we need to spark a true revolution in our quest to end corruption. To accept that our culture is steeped in nuances that enable corruption, is the first major step to a revolution that is worthy of the spirit that attended the 1986 Revolution, or to even upstage it.
The presence today of civil society and very thoughtfully, the private sector must be our irrevocable admission that the specter of corruption is played across all sectors, all strata of Philippine society. It must be our admission that corruption is not only a hazard of doing business under this government, it is a hazard that is propagated, too, by those that do business. It is not just a consequence of free enterprise, but also a result of unscrupulous enterprise.
Just as within the government, as illustrated, for example, by political aspirants who use public money to butter up barangay captains in preparation for looming elections, between government and private enterprise, and between private enterprise with other private enterprises, between big business and SMEs, and then full circle between small enterprise and government, corruption has in fact infected us on so many levels. And yet, it is even more widespread than that. Even aid agencies, foreign-funded NGOs had not been spared by this malady. The realm of NGOs remains, in the minds of our children, the last bastion of altruism and selflessness, yet it too has integrity issues. Where had all this foreign aid gone? What do we have to show for it?
While, thankfully, there remain good apples and stellar examples of integrity everywhere, in government, the private sector, in civil society, now is not the time to flaunt spotless slates, and now is not yet the time to smoke out those without clean hands. We speak of only one culture shared by all of us – a culture with nuances that facilitate the Filipino's propensity for corruption. When we admit this of ourselves collectively, only then can we genuinely move forward.
The task we are undertaking now is immense. Many have worked hard to solve the problem of corrupt governance. So much more has to be done. The creation of a long-term system of measurement, oversight, reporting and prosecution is beautifully outlined in our program objectives.
Before I close my discourse, may I share with you, further insights into the human rights approach to corruption.
Absent from anti-corruption analysis are human rights concerns. In particular, how we define corruption and how it adversely impacts on the enjoyment of rights especially of the poor and vulnerable.
No less than the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its consideration of the Philippine Government through the issuance of its Concluding Observations, has noted ". . . with concern that, despite the efforts undertaken by the State party to curb corruption, including the establishment of a number of anti-corruption bodies such as the anti-corruption court, this phenomenon continues to be widespread."
The Committee recommends that the State party intensify its efforts to prosecute cases of corruption and review its sentencing policy for corruption-related offences. It also recommends that the State party train the police and other law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges on the strict application of anti-corruption laws, conduct awareness-raising campaigns, and ensure the transparency of the conduct of public authorities, in law and in practice. The Committee requests the State party to provide in its next periodic report detailed information about progress made, and obstacles encountered.
Taking off from this statement, the Commission on Human Rights challenges all to address corruption through the Human Rights Based Approach. We gather stakeholders: duty bearers and claimholders alike to adhere to the idea that nipping corruption requires the human rights perspective.
And we start by broadening the definition of corruption.
That is, ‘corruption is not simply a question of improper payments or bribery’ it should be defined further by including and publicizing the negative impact it ultimately brings to people – the enjoyment of rights by the claimholders. Publicizing, in such a manner that they not only are sensitized to be averse and angry about corruption but encouraging them to claim their rights by doing something about corruption.
In this sense "corruption is a toll on societies that tolerate poor governance as well as the end result for the weak demand for good governance."
In short, we begin to stem corruption not only by naming and shaming the ‘corruptor’ and the ‘corruptee’. We must empower people to act and do their part by demanding good governance lest they become tools to the perpetuation of corruption.
So now we posit not only an integrity and human rights pact but an integrity and human rights act – to be averse to the menace of corruption, to stand up against corruption and to act now and demand for good governance.
Now is the moment to choose action over lethargy and over apathy; to choose integrity over ennui. Now must be the tipping point. It must be the revolution. So when I ask you, is this the moment? – there is no other answer, there is no other choice. That we are gathered here today, ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment.
Thank you.
on the Occasion of the First Integrity and Human Rights Conference
Manila, Philippines,
27 January 2009
Keynote Speech delivered by
LEILA M. DE LIMA
Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines
My co-workers in the public sector, our friends in the private sector, distinguished speakers, members of the diplomatic community, our partners in civil society, the academe and the media, ladies and gentlemen:
Good morning!
Today's event is truly a momentous occasion, a moment where we as one people undertake the critical shift of paradigms in the seemingly endless struggle on two fronts – the struggle to squelch rabid corruption and the struggle to vigilantly uphold and protect human rights.
For many years, the problem of corruption had always been viewed as a bane to economic freedom, an impediment to free market capitalism and a black mark on the investment environment of the country. It had been viewed almost solely as hindrance to economic growth and progress, the perennial aspiration of all developing nations such as ourselves. Corruption has been seen only as an inconvenient yet unavoidable factor in bureaucratic transactions, a sinful habit that attends the ordinary course of enterprise and regulation.
Ironically, as much material and academic discourse had been poured into the evils of corruption, it is still viewed, impliedly or otherwise, as not only necessary, but more poignantly, ordinary.
Yet, as ordinary as corruption is to our jaded existence, in spite of the known malady that it brings, we find ourselves in that curiously awkward and exquisitely pained middle ground of neither denouncing it nor embracing it. When we speak to our children, we are careful never to elaborate on the real character of “real world” transactions – always sure to underscore the values of honesty and integrity in their naïve lives. We teach our law students, for example, what the law says, the essence behind legislative fiat, the ethics of the legal profession, and yet we never tell them that they cannot survive in practice without sacrificing and compromising some measure of the very values we inculcate in them during their years at school. What happens in law school is replicated in varying deviations across all classrooms, across different disciplines, across every level of education, to children of people from all walks of life.
We are neither here nor there. For everything that had transpired in our history as a nation, we have never come to grips with our languid stance on corruption. Though it is corruption precisely that had driven us to expel two presidents no less, it is the same corruption that we had so sadly conceded to time and again after the revolutions.
All along, while our efforts had focused on expelling presidents and engaging in protracted congressional hearings, anti-corruption euphoria had overlooked one crucial feature of corruption – it infects more than just our government. It infects nearly all aspects of our lives, drawing in more players than we are willing to admit. It includes not just the bureaucracy, but the private sector as well. It affects not only transaction costs, but opportunity costs on so many levels. Every person's large or small contribution to a widespread culture of corruption adds to an ever-expanding gap between those who can secure rent and those who cannot, a perpetuation of the decline of budgetary allocation into education and health while public works and military spending increase with the growing ease of securing kickbacks. The result of years of overlooking these features had led us into our quagmire now – the poor are less educated, have less access to health and economic opportunity, and therefore, are less able to uplift themselves from their own poverty. Their right to adequate services, their right to justice and development continues to be denied not just by a government that is seen to be corrupt, but a culture that fosters corruption.
And all the while, we've been witch-hunting! Who in the DOJ, in the PDEA is at fault in the Alabang Boys case; who in the SBMA and the DENR is responsible for the cutting of protected forests in Subic Bay; who in the Executive Department had been responsible for the Fertilizer Scam and the ZTE deal. The more we hunt, the reality is that the more we must examine ourselves. The more we seek revolutions, the more we must seek change in ourselves.
What we need now is not just another revolution. We need a revolution that upstages all previous revolutions – one that not only changes the configuration of political power, but one that changes the Filipino psyche. We need to put an end to our habit of openly denouncing corruption, then surreptitiously consenting to it. Many of us here are guilty of this.
The 1st Integrity and Human Rights Conference is NOT our first attempt at characterizing corruption as more than a problem of economic progress. We did not stage a revolt in 1986 because the Philippines was slowly being left behind by our Asian neighbors in terms of economic growth. We did stage a revolt because wages were not enough, purchasing power was falling, jobs were scarce, we felt no security, and more importantly friends and family members remained detained, free speech and assembly was squelched, positive change was desperately needed. We did not stage a revolt post the 1997 Asian financial crisis because of a flagging economy. It was staged because of the sentiment that the right of the people to know the truth was being systematically denied, that corrupt practice and nepotism was rampant and that which the people deserved but did not get – a government that fostered equal opportunity and an equitable distribution of wealth did not exist. NONE of the reasons for igniting a revolution was purely based on the increased transactional costs or festering rent-seeking or impaired economic progress. The reasons for revolt are those things that a people may demand from their government – rights that everyone can assert. The revolts were not purely crisis of economy, as corruption is often portrayed as instigating, but a humanitarian crisis at its core. It is a crisis, not only on the realm of economic progress and business climate, but a crisis in the broad and all-encompassing field of human development and human rights.
At its very core, corruption is not just an inconvenient requisite to bureaucratic transactions. It is a very serious violation of human rights. This statement is the reason we are here today – to instill in your minds, for you to instill in the minds of your subordinates, to instill in the minds of their children and your children, and your children's children: corruption is a violation of human rights.
Originally, this conference had been scheduled for December, right around the time that the world had been commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The timing could not have been more perfect to drive home the significant relationship between human rights as a whole and the UN Convention Against Corruption, or the UNCAC.
The storied history of the development of human rights sheds a brighter light on our current struggle to combat corruption. From the very first spark in the minds of subjugated ancient peoples that their oppression was not an inevitably perpetual condition, the moment that their current condition was seen as an affliction, that serf, slaves, conquered nations, laborers, women, farmers, pariahs all believed that there could be no inevitability except to live in dignified existence, that is when the seeds of human rights had been sown. The most prolific of revolutions, the French Revolution, set the stage for revolutions for the masses, for the proletariat and for ordinary people throughout the world. It had been studied meticulously for generations, as it is studied today, just as our own national heroes had arduously sown the seeds of human rights in our people.
Human rights had taken a dramatic turn only when the human race had reached a tipping point – a second world war that would decimate countries, almost half of a generation lost on the war front, in different theaters of conflict across the planet. Fathers, brothers, sons lost over land and sea, six million men, women and children belonging to stateless nation of Jews exterminated in concentration camps, countries around the world annexed in the name of war, culminating in the surrender of the last antagonists following the haunting moment of two whole cities, including their populations, vaporized by the power of atomic energy.
What, then, in all of this, pushed mankind to carve in stone the value of human life? What is the seminal moment for the birth of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
It was at the moment where mankind had seen its own, most grotesque face, through the most atrocious of acts directed at his fellow man, in the name of race, ultra-nationalism, alliances, in the name of status quo or change, peace or progress, in the name of saving life by ironically, taking life. It was in this furious backdrop of war, pillage, encroachment, racism, extermination and murder that man had to accept what had become of man so that we could draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, so that not only war atrocities, but all atrocities, against the dignity of man can be stamped out.
Our courageous struggle against corruption and the battle for integrity and accountability, transparency and trust, derives many lessons from the development of the seminal document on human rights. It is in the comparison between the histories of human rights and corruption that we hope to deliver this new paradigm, this new revolution that upstages any past revolution in the name of integrity.
Corruption is as old as civilization, as old as the notion of private gain and the notion of greed. It is defined as the misuse of power entrusted for the purpose of private gain. At the point in human history that hierarchies had emerged in social systems, that taxation and collective wealth gave birth to personal wealth, corruption had been born. It had afflicted ancient civilizations of China and Rome, the Persians and Greek empires.
In our own brief history as a nation, it had afflicted us in the colonial rule of the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese. Our claim to fame as one of the first colonies to gain independence had also given rise to the first indigenous democracy infected with corruption. It had been with us from the Commonwealth, the Republics that had followed, and it is still with us now.
When sociologists seek the cultural thread of corruption in our country, they speak of a cultural fabric sown with the notions of a padrino-culture, utang na loob, bahala ka na, sponsors and favors – all very well entrenched in our psyche and our culture, and very, very old. From the most notorious forms of corruption, such as the customary 20% kickback on government contracts to the most minute such as unjustified color-coding exemptions, and all the examples in between, illustrate not only the pervasiveness of corruption, but its seemingly natural place in our culture.
In human rights, it took the most horrific of events abridged into the first half of the 20th century to bring mankind into self-reflection on what had become of ourselves, imperialists in the name of colonialism and benevolent assimilation, war-mongers in the name of national security and preemptive strike, killers, butchers of the name of life, liberty and freedom of every man. Yet the critical moment had not come at self-reflection. It had not come at self-assessment. It had not come at knowing what had become of our humanity. The true flash point came at self-acceptance, when the world had proverbially looked at itself in the mirror and pointed at itself as the culprit. When the world accepted that it had become a monstrosity in spite of the highest values it held sacred, that was the time that these values had emerged in the form of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
For corruption, had we reached a flash point? It seems that yes, we have. But it isn't today. It was nearly 23 years ago. Again, a tipping point appeared in 2001. But appearances are deceiving. As enormous as the uproar was in 1986 and 2001, I am not sure we had truly reached the tipping point. Why, then, are we here today, only beginning to embark on some grandly envisioned plan to eliminate corruption once and for all? Why is this only the FIRST integrity and human rights conference? Why is the struggle for integrity and the battle against corruption old but not obsolete? Why is it passé and trite but thoroughly present in our time?
Today's conference is ground-breaking but only on the condition that we cross the same threshold that faced our grandparents’ generation at the end of the last world war – the threshold of accepting what had become of us, what had become of ALL of us.
For so long, corruption and the crusade against it had centered on the bureaucracy, the government. Without any surprise, government is well-represented in this conference. We have the Ombudsman, the Military, the PNP, the LGUs and even the PEZA representatives to discuss anti-corruption and the measures that are being undertaken.
Yet, our characterization of corruption as a hallmark of the government and the bureaucracy, is itself passé. Ask any college-aged student, and many will tell you that, given a choice, they will not work for government because it reeks of corruption, that their cherished Catholic School-values will be threatened and eroded until they themselves become no different from the government they eye so suspiciously. Yet, the same children who will grow up and enter the real world and find out for themselves the falsity of their insulated education. They will find out that corruption is everywhere. In this day and age, for our children NOT to know this early that corruption is more rampant than what they imagine, is to mislead them.
Corruption is no exception from any elegant economic theory of supply and demand. While we have focused so much on the supply-side of corruption, there is very little in the Filipino collective psyche about the demand-side. There is very little thought given to the two-way street, the two-to-tango relationship that characterizes corruption. Private interest or business has an equally, and sometimes even greater, interest in perpetuating the cycle of corruption. Refer back to college-aged students – they simply do not know that the private sector is itself as immersed in corruption as the government is.
This is part of that awkward middle ground upon which we stand on – to tell our children to steer clear of corruption, but not tell them that it is everywhere. To feel indignation at the latest news of another government cover-up, but not to feel indignation when we ourselves give in to corruption. To simply tell our children that it is everywhere, and then to be upstanding in the face of it, makes a whole world of difference.
To simply tell our children, to tell ourselves that corruption is everywhere, and then to be upstanding in the face of it... this is our threshold, this is the acceptance, the true flash point that we need to spark a true revolution in our quest to end corruption. To accept that our culture is steeped in nuances that enable corruption, is the first major step to a revolution that is worthy of the spirit that attended the 1986 Revolution, or to even upstage it.
The presence today of civil society and very thoughtfully, the private sector must be our irrevocable admission that the specter of corruption is played across all sectors, all strata of Philippine society. It must be our admission that corruption is not only a hazard of doing business under this government, it is a hazard that is propagated, too, by those that do business. It is not just a consequence of free enterprise, but also a result of unscrupulous enterprise.
Just as within the government, as illustrated, for example, by political aspirants who use public money to butter up barangay captains in preparation for looming elections, between government and private enterprise, and between private enterprise with other private enterprises, between big business and SMEs, and then full circle between small enterprise and government, corruption has in fact infected us on so many levels. And yet, it is even more widespread than that. Even aid agencies, foreign-funded NGOs had not been spared by this malady. The realm of NGOs remains, in the minds of our children, the last bastion of altruism and selflessness, yet it too has integrity issues. Where had all this foreign aid gone? What do we have to show for it?
While, thankfully, there remain good apples and stellar examples of integrity everywhere, in government, the private sector, in civil society, now is not the time to flaunt spotless slates, and now is not yet the time to smoke out those without clean hands. We speak of only one culture shared by all of us – a culture with nuances that facilitate the Filipino's propensity for corruption. When we admit this of ourselves collectively, only then can we genuinely move forward.
The task we are undertaking now is immense. Many have worked hard to solve the problem of corrupt governance. So much more has to be done. The creation of a long-term system of measurement, oversight, reporting and prosecution is beautifully outlined in our program objectives.
Before I close my discourse, may I share with you, further insights into the human rights approach to corruption.
Absent from anti-corruption analysis are human rights concerns. In particular, how we define corruption and how it adversely impacts on the enjoyment of rights especially of the poor and vulnerable.
No less than the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its consideration of the Philippine Government through the issuance of its Concluding Observations, has noted ". . . with concern that, despite the efforts undertaken by the State party to curb corruption, including the establishment of a number of anti-corruption bodies such as the anti-corruption court, this phenomenon continues to be widespread."
The Committee recommends that the State party intensify its efforts to prosecute cases of corruption and review its sentencing policy for corruption-related offences. It also recommends that the State party train the police and other law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges on the strict application of anti-corruption laws, conduct awareness-raising campaigns, and ensure the transparency of the conduct of public authorities, in law and in practice. The Committee requests the State party to provide in its next periodic report detailed information about progress made, and obstacles encountered.
Taking off from this statement, the Commission on Human Rights challenges all to address corruption through the Human Rights Based Approach. We gather stakeholders: duty bearers and claimholders alike to adhere to the idea that nipping corruption requires the human rights perspective.
And we start by broadening the definition of corruption.
That is, ‘corruption is not simply a question of improper payments or bribery’ it should be defined further by including and publicizing the negative impact it ultimately brings to people – the enjoyment of rights by the claimholders. Publicizing, in such a manner that they not only are sensitized to be averse and angry about corruption but encouraging them to claim their rights by doing something about corruption.
In this sense "corruption is a toll on societies that tolerate poor governance as well as the end result for the weak demand for good governance."
In short, we begin to stem corruption not only by naming and shaming the ‘corruptor’ and the ‘corruptee’. We must empower people to act and do their part by demanding good governance lest they become tools to the perpetuation of corruption.
So now we posit not only an integrity and human rights pact but an integrity and human rights act – to be averse to the menace of corruption, to stand up against corruption and to act now and demand for good governance.
Now is the moment to choose action over lethargy and over apathy; to choose integrity over ennui. Now must be the tipping point. It must be the revolution. So when I ask you, is this the moment? – there is no other answer, there is no other choice. That we are gathered here today, ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment.
Thank you.
Comments