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As the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy itself says, what makes the Philippine case “sad” is not just the quantity of the corruption but the quality of it. PERC sees the difference as the Philippines openly discussing the numerous perfidies in the media whereas the other Asian countries, for one reason or another, are unable to do so. But that is a minor difference. The true difference is that that corruption in the Philippines is not just the corruption of public office but also the corruption of laws, morals, values, the national fiber.
Or put another way, it is not just the theft of money but also the theft of all that is good and decent in society. That includes democracy’s most cherished institution, which is the vote. That is what has made all the other thefts possible. That is the original sin, the differentia specifica. You steal the vote, you will steal anything. You can be shameless about ruling without a mandate, you can be shameless about ruling with compunction. That is what makes this corruption different from the corruption of Joseph Estrada and the other leaders of Asia.
There are “positive” ways to solve the problem, but there are “negative” ones as well. The reason those two terms are in quotation marks is that they’re totally misleading when they do not appear with them. There’s nothing negative about razing down a condemned building, though the action itself entails destruction. And there’s nothing positive about building a crystal palace on brittle foundations, though the action itself entails construction. Destroying is not necessarily negative; it can be the most positive thing in the world. Building is not necessarily positive; it can be the most negative thing in the world.
What all this points to is that any “positive” action we take to build a better order must be accompanied by the “negative” one of razing down a rotten one. Or put more directly, any action we take to restore decency and honesty and goodness in society must be accompanied by removing the source of indecency and dishonesty and evil in society. Or still put more directly, any action we take to start a new life must be accompanied by ending this regime.
The one means nothing without the other. True enough, we oust GMA without empowering the people, without teaching and/or learning the right moral values, and we won’t assure a better future. But even truer enough, we try doing all these things without ousting GMA, and we won’t get to first base at all. GMA herself shows she can always set things back: Look how she has corrupted to the core the bishops themselves. By all means let us work to assure that the evil that assails us today never happens again. But let us assure first that the evil that assails us today will be gone soon.
We are never powerless to do both. Paraphrasing Barack Obama, we are the change we’ve been waiting for, we are the good we’re hoping to unleash. — Conrado de Quiros, Inquirer
