Graft and corruption as always

Graft and Corruption as always

What is the situation of graft and corruption in our country today?

This situation as I believe is getting much worse than ever due to the unwillingness of our public officials to reform themselves to include the Presidents, generals and other high ranking  officials while they are in position in the government.  Or to help curtail this situation. We have too much written and approved circulars, guidelines and national laws governing of bureaucracy but to no success, rather it just bloated to much, to uncontrolled proportions and mostly not being known to the public or to the right authorities who themselves are corrupt. So, how can a nation rise from this situation if almost all high or higher officials of this government are so corrupt in themselves. Look at the Marcoses, Estradas, and Ramoses administrations. The latest is the Macapagal Arroyos. It is almost impossible. We may not admit it but it is true in almost all government departments.

What are the signs that this is becoming worse? Number 1, is our increasing annual budget deficit. Instead of saving we overspend, and then the question is how and when, can we get up if this is always the trend? If we are serious enough to tackle our scenario then we have to save money in all our departments and spend less to unnecessary spending.

Why we deficit? Because we spend our annual budget in less than a year. And experience shows that once the budget is approved our main concern is to spend the money rather than actually working. Do you not observe our offices? What do you see in our tables? Disbursement vouchers in the guise that we are actually trying our best to see to it that all our transactions are being taken care of and scrutinized to pass COA regulations. COA regulations are not sufficient enough to curtail graft and corruption. Now the question is what we actually ought to focus on ourselves? Why we cannot focus on problem solving or field works to see to it that our development projects are implemented they way it should be? And refine our implementation system. Why money is always the main focus? On the other hand it is because the more we spend money in our offices, the more we get our SOP which becomes already institutionalized. That is why that we cannot control graft because of that. But we cannot see it anymore because we see it as very normal to ourselves and even demand for it from our creditors, the private sector or your boss transforming themselves to businessmen while in power.

So how can we improve ourselves now? Even how many best presidents of our country, it falls to that culture. But do you think we have to let these things go as it is? Of course the answer is no. Because in our inner self we know that it is not good and not necessary. However, we enjoy doing it all the time because it is money without any capital. Meaning we are involved in big business without pure capital.

Who are the biggest grafters? These are the subjects:

1.      The President himself

2.      His cabinet members local and abroad

a.      Department Secretaries

b.      Under Secretaries

c.      Regional Directors

d.      Provincial Directors

3.      GCC officials

4.      The senators

5.      The congressmen

6.      Governors and mayors

7.      Local government heads of each department.

THERE SHOULD BE A MONITORING BODY TO SEE, IF WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY DOING. THERE LIFESTYLE, AND HOW THEY HANDLE THE OFFICE BUDGET. IT MAY APPEAR THAT THEY ARE SPENDING NORMALLY BUT IS IT REALLY THE ACCEPTABLE SITUATION? OR IT CAN STILL BE IMPROVE?

So, how can you do it if we want to run our bureaucracy fairly? But let’s try. The problem is how?

The HOW is the hardest part. But you know, all the people I mentioned above will say hello, I’m not corrupt like the others. I am only corrupt institutionally. The cash they received is from the ghost activities of their departments, the contractors or bidders and suppliers or gifts, in exchange of rendering services, but whether he ask for it or not, it is corruption. And that is the real situation, we are a double face people as a part of our culture. Meaning we are a corrupt culture, but most of us will not accept it. We have actually no controls and exact situationer in almost all of our departments or like these GCC’s. Yes absolutely, because we have no clear definition of graft and corruption. We have no definite annual assessment on these departments whether they are performing well or not, as far as spending money is concerned. Because what we receive from them are well written orchestrated bureaucratic official reports. They do not show the real situation of each department.

What we know is that as long as it will pass our COA system then it is alright to amass money from the government. Meaning it is an acceptable manner as most others do or having their fair share of graft and corruption. But whether it is recorded formally in the ombudsman or not, still we are committing graft and corruption. The biggest money we are losing is actually more on the institutionally accepted graft and corruption level in our bureaucracy. Or they are committing to a certain extent in graft and corruption acceptable in our government standards. But what we ought to do is to eradicate even a mere tint of graft and corruption. So we ought to review, and then revised our standards with the end view of eradicating unwanted expenditures or unrestrained overpricing of expenditures. As much as possible these people must not be involved in handling money but rather in line with distribution of goods and services only. Because money is the main root of graft and corruption.