The Underlying Roots of Corruption as the Vital Cause of Agony in the Philippines

The underlying roots of corruption as the vital cause of agony

in the Philippines

Dating back from Spanish colonialization until at present, the Philippines has been dealing with government corruption as the most serious political issue where elected officials abuse the entrusted power to pursue personal gain. This unethical conduct causes drastic impacts primarily plunging destitution level in the country making us blame everything to corruption. However, we need to realize that corruption is just an indication of much more profound issues. The reason behind why we cannot end various affliction in our society is that we tend to focus on corruption as the 'main' problem to deal with, having no comprehension of why it exists in the first place. Corruption is not the vital cause of agony in the Philippine society but its underlying systemic roots that we need to recognize and curb to find its fundamental solutions and build a strong state.

In recent years, there have been added pieces of evidence that the Philippine government executes this kind of political impurity bombarding Filipinos with controversies we are growing tired about: P738M fertilizer scam, Hello Garci, P1.3B poll automation contract, Priority Development Assistance Fund, etc. There is, therefore, no doubt why the Philippines is among the most corrupt country in Asia and why numerous Filipinos feel indignant and are currently fighting for a corruption-free government. Nevertheless, we can achieve this aspiration of eliminating corruption through fixing those underlying causes that are present and some of the following: a.) institutional structure b.) captured state and spoil system c.) flawed Presidential system and weak political parties, and d.)  weak justice system.

To have a better understanding as to why corruption exists in the government, we need to take a closer look at its structural roots through dissecting its relationship with the country’s' political-cultural history and socio-economic structure. In the Philippines, there is an evident unequal distribution of wealth, power, and participation in decision-making, which divided the citizens into class ― the poor and the rich. Scenarios in the country often show how the destitute lacks the power, privilege, and prestige the elites possessed taking up the weight of supporting them in exchange of the resources required for living. Having the 'elite dominates poor' type of mentality since Spanish colonialization made the unfortunates relied on the ruling class who, unfortunately, exploits their weakness. As a result, they missed development opportunities and hardly have participation and control over decisions made in the whole society that might affect their class. The continuation of this kind of institutional structure for centuries with no modification became an impeccable domain for corruption to exist and thrive in our country.

Another underlying root of corruption is in connection with the one mentioned above where subjugation to elite structure allows the ruling class to monopolize state power and utilize it as an apparatus for self-aggrandizement. Corruption transpires when the richest families struggle for dominance of who will control the state to have easy access to economic advancement and take control of the decisions made to enable them to preserve and increase power, prestige, and privileges. One means of doing so is through capturing the state. According to Hutchcroft and Rocamora (2003), since the colonial era, Philippine politics became driven by the politics of patronage distributing spoils among the elites and expanding quantities available to them. The spoils system permitted politicians to use its power and privilege to convey offices and budgetary allocations to political appointees (e.g. kin, friends, associates) creating a political party with common interests that will have ready access to the patronage resources. Since political power has influence over economic power, and that it provided the ruling class there aspired wealth, it is not questionable why they commit corruption or why it happens. For instance, the pork barrel or the  Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) which recently caused an uproar due to the exposition of a scam committed by several officials headed by Janet Lim-Napoles. PDAF is an annual lump-sum discretionary fund given to congressional representatives and senators to support local priority development projects. However, the ruling class tends to abuse this legal source of corruption by keeping the money (a way to increase wealth) for themselves hindering advancement in different sectors of the society such as slow economic growth (e.g. agriculture, manufacturing, urban planning) taking us far behind other countries. The PDAF system only shows us one of the ways on how the elite utilize the state in acquiring their economic self-interests through corruption.

The third underlying root of agony that I would argue is our flawed Presidential system and weak political parties. According to our Philippine Constitution, the Presidential system is divided into three major branches, namely, the Executive headed by the President, the Legislative consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the Judiciary which is the Supreme Court ― all having co-equal power. The purpose of these branches is to cooperate with the goal of protecting citizens’ freedom and to control politicians’ abusive intentions. The problems came in when the executive department overpowers the other two branches because of the weak legislatures, weak judicial structures, and weak political parties, making the president emerged as the more dominant. Unlike other officials in legislative and judiciary, the president has the authority to control and maneuver the executive department allowing him to appoint or reduce officials of the cabinets, transfer them to other departments and realign allocations. As a result, many people shifted to the president's party to get in line for patronage and pork such as PDAF (Hutchcroft & Rocamora, 2003). In addition, under the constitution, the legislature is the one who enacts the national budget. However, the president (being superior of them all) still has the capability to intervene because he has the main power over the purse where money can only be disbursed with his consent. Of course, this won't be much of a bigger deal if only we have wise and honest leaders who are responsible and capable of handling nation's money by giving it to its rightful allocations, not on their wallets. The incompetent leaders in our country are products of weak political parties, which fail to filter out undeserving people and choose to support those who can best deliver them patronage benefits rather than good public services. As a result, public administration in the Philippines is devastated where the basic goal of delivering services and responding to the needs of the people in the whole archipelago was not well achieved and the government due to lack of funds, organization, and managerial attention since everything's concentrated in the hands of the president. Moreover, corruption may thrive within the political parties and allies who support the executive through favors.