Corruption is yours and mine

I attended a seminar on anti-corruption entitled ‘Ehem!’ with other student leaders in the university. The title ‘Ehem’, I reckon, is very apt to the seminar because it is a cunning gesture that suggests malice and doubt to whom it is addressed. The seminar’s objectives were to provide discussions and workshops on corruption and ultimately, to eradicate corruption in the country.

Before I went to the seminar, I thought corruption was only limited to the financial abuse of those who are in authority and getting what is not rightfully theirs. But, it turns out, corruption is more than that.

One student leader shared that corruption, in its broadest sense, is the nonconformity or offense to the rules of the land and to the universal human principles. It took me some time to fathom what he just said. How could a criminal offense like murder be associated with corruption? Then I remembered the book “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini. It said stealing is the root sin of the world. When you kill an old man, you steal a child’s right to a father and you steal a wife’s right to a husband. But stealing is corruption. Therefore, when you kill a person, you corrupt other’s right to him; when you rape a young lady, you corrupt her virginity and innocence; when you lie, you corrupt other’s right to truth.

And so it struck me. Corruption exists on all levels of the society. The politicians do it, when they steal money from the taxpayers. The criminals do it, when they commit an offense. The businessmen do it, when they overprice their items. The teachers do it, when they come late to class. The students do it when they habitually ask papers from their classmates during quizzes. The tricycle driver, even, does it when he charges six pesos instead of only five.

It may be a blind spot to some, but 99% of us has already corrupted and are still active participants of corruption, no matter how simple the case may be.

Corruption is already a culture. And we are part of it.

So there is now really no question who does corruption because we all do it. (Maybe, there are 1% of all people who are exemptions. They are a rarity). What sets all of us apart is the severity of the corruption we are doing.

The final speaker said that people need total detachment to counterchallenge the culture of corruption. If they break away from corruption, they should put up an organization and lead others to follow them. People who are able to do this are called catalysts for change.

It sounds really promising but how are we supposed to concretely and totally detach ourselves from corruption when it is already in our system? One of the facilitators said, “that is the challenge!” Much to my disappointment, I thought that statement was a lame excuse of saying, “I actually don’t know.” I am not questioning the facilitator’s knowledge (because he was good at facilitating, by the way). What I’m concerned is that nobody really knows how to translate total eradication of corruption in CONCRETE ways. Or if there is one person who can, I beg you to please tell me. I beg you.

The unanswered question playing on my mind left me wondering if corruption is really unshakeable. Maybe some people can do something about it, like awareness campaigns and staging peaceful revolutions to overthrow corrupt leaders as in the case of People Power I and II. But I doubt if people can totally annihilate it in all levels of society.

One friend told corruption is always here to stay. The full-blooded idealist that I am, I tried to argue. I ended up telling him that the lower forms of corruption may actually be indispensable, but there is hope in eradicating the higher forms – and that is what we should be actively vigilant and responsive of.

Another friend said majority of the people are not as idealist as the few are. Then I guess it boils down to individual preference for the good. As a student leader, I cannot severely change the perceptions of the members. What I can do perhaps is to stay true to my idealism and hope to inspire even one of them.

This essay does not aim to sound pessimistic. It wants to present information. More importantly, it wants to post questions and shape public opinion. This article is not conclusive because the subject matter evades itself to it. This essay, just like the seminar I attended, may have been informative, but it will leave you with more questions than answers.

BY RYAN LOUIE G. MADRID