Sharing the loot
Sharing the loot
Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Nov 10, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
"HEY, Mike," my Indonesian friend Muhadjir asked me the other day over a hearty dinner to end the day's fasting, "who did better this year in the corruption ratings: the Philippines or Indonesia?"
Muhadjir was referring to the latest Transparency International ratings of perceptions of corruption. I couldn't remember our rating, but I joked, "Oh, I think we're catching up with Indonesia..." (I checked later and found that the Philippines ranks 102nd while Indonesia ranks 133rd -- meaning we're still perceived as being less corrupt.)
Muhadjir continued with his interrogation: "Is it true what I heard, that even your lowest-ranking government personnel have also learned to be corrupt?"
I was startled by his question because I'd always presumed corruption was found through the rank and file of government offices, but then I did remember reading, a few weeks ago, about a customs utilities person who was being investigated because he had several vehicles. Maybe Muhadjir had heard right about even our lowest-ranking government workers learning to get their share of the bribes.
I did remember, too, many years ago when we were under Marcos and the Indonesians were under Suharto, how we'd compare corruption. Many observers familiar with both countries agreed that corruption in both countries, during the dictatorships, was mainly concentrated among top officials -- with one difference: Our biggest thieves were a greedy lot, reluctant to share their loot, while in Indonesia, the big fish tended to share their earnings with their subalterns.
Decentralized, democratized
What's happened after the dictators fell? These days, Muhadjir laughed out loud, because governments have been decentralized to local units (like in the Philippines), the corruption has been decentralized as well.
An interesting point, I thought. Can corruption be decentralized and democratized, to promote, albeit perversely, greater equity?
Unexpectedly, I got my answer when one of my relatives' former household helpers came visiting last week to seek my help. Inday had worked for many years with my relative, who had, on my prodding, been paying premium for her to the Social Security System (SSS) during her last few years of work. Inday had since retired and gone back to her hometown in the Visayas, looking forward to a simple but comfortable life, with help from her SSS retirement payments.
Unfortunately, Inday never got around to getting an SSS card, which the local office was asking for. So she was now in Manila to try to get that card. I asked why she had to come all the way to Manila, presuming that queues would be shorter and the staff would be friendlier in the offices outside Manila?
Inday corrected me with a litany of complaints. The queues are longer because people come in from all over the region, from the most far-flung municipalities, and it's often chaotic, she explained, with missing and lost records and people generally not knowing what to do.
Worse, she said, corruption is endemic, from the lowest-ranking clerks upwards. She'd experienced that lethal look from clerks, a bored smile that said it all: "It will take time, maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months, to process your papers ... unless you want it facilitated."
She had been approached by fixers offering to help her with the retirement payments, if she agreed to pay a certain amount (it varied, from several hundreds to a thousand pesos) and if she agreed to give them a percentage of each retirement check.
I was horrified thinking of the scenarios. Maybe the SSS people were really honest and the fixers were outsiders and con artists who would run off with the facilitation fee. But the fact that they could roam the SSS office freely said something. And if perceptions were widespread about the need to go through these facilitators, then we probably have an even worse situation, of vicious thieves with connections within the SSS, able to tamper with the payments so the "brokers" could get their monthly cut.
Victimizing the victims
I guessed then. Now I can answer Muhadjir that yes, corruption has seeped down to the rank and file, and in the most vicious ways because people already beaten to the ground by poverty find themselves again victimized by corruption.
I'm not surprised that the poor complain constantly about all the documents they have to get from government agencies, from birth certificates to clearances from the National Bureau of Investigation, to health and retirement benefits. The procedures, and forms to fill out, can be daunting, and it almost seems they were intentionally made that way to breed niches for fixers and corrupt clerks.
It's infuriating because the poor do end up paying more, relative to their income, squeezed for every centavo they can give. And the poor are only to willing to pay the bribes because they do benefit in the end, even if to get paltry benefits like SSS retirement checks, which are then further reduced by the fixers' share. The wiser ones, like Inday, pay to come up to Manila to avoid the fixers, figuring the investment for the trip is better than giving up 10 percent of their monthly retirement checks.
Think of the variations here. A friend of mine had to go and claim his driver's license from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority for a traffic violation. He got the smiles and the hints of delays, but he persisted and paid the prescribed P500. All around him, he could see and hear the wheeling and dealing, mainly involving jeepney and taxi drivers, who would pay under the table because they could not afford to wait. A day without a driver's license meant lost income. They paid P1,000 instead of P500, but still figured they came out winning because they could get back to work. Others paid because they didn't want the offense encoded into the computers and into their records.
It doesn't occur to these drivers that they actually lost P500 because of the bribe. Or, that other people lose, too, since the system encourages bad drivers to repeat their offenses because they know they can get away with it, again and again.
As corruption becomes the norm, the way to get things done, we can expect the poor to be victimized even more, the stakes increasing as more low-rank crooks and fixers compete. I've heard of many stories of intrigues among the clerks, of a pirating of clients, or of double-crosses when it comes to dividing up the loot. All this is bound to worsen as government cuts back on personnel even as the population grows, together with all the bureaucratic requirements.
These petty thieves are never going to get millions in kickbacks, but a few dozen victims a day can mean a more than comfortable life, maybe so much so that they won't even need to queue up for their retirement checks, when their time comes.
Updated 00:44am (Mla time) Nov 10, 2004
By Michael Tan
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the November 10, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
"HEY, Mike," my Indonesian friend Muhadjir asked me the other day over a hearty dinner to end the day's fasting, "who did better this year in the corruption ratings: the Philippines or Indonesia?"
Muhadjir was referring to the latest Transparency International ratings of perceptions of corruption. I couldn't remember our rating, but I joked, "Oh, I think we're catching up with Indonesia..." (I checked later and found that the Philippines ranks 102nd while Indonesia ranks 133rd -- meaning we're still perceived as being less corrupt.)
Muhadjir continued with his interrogation: "Is it true what I heard, that even your lowest-ranking government personnel have also learned to be corrupt?"
I was startled by his question because I'd always presumed corruption was found through the rank and file of government offices, but then I did remember reading, a few weeks ago, about a customs utilities person who was being investigated because he had several vehicles. Maybe Muhadjir had heard right about even our lowest-ranking government workers learning to get their share of the bribes.
I did remember, too, many years ago when we were under Marcos and the Indonesians were under Suharto, how we'd compare corruption. Many observers familiar with both countries agreed that corruption in both countries, during the dictatorships, was mainly concentrated among top officials -- with one difference: Our biggest thieves were a greedy lot, reluctant to share their loot, while in Indonesia, the big fish tended to share their earnings with their subalterns.
Decentralized, democratized
What's happened after the dictators fell? These days, Muhadjir laughed out loud, because governments have been decentralized to local units (like in the Philippines), the corruption has been decentralized as well.
An interesting point, I thought. Can corruption be decentralized and democratized, to promote, albeit perversely, greater equity?
Unexpectedly, I got my answer when one of my relatives' former household helpers came visiting last week to seek my help. Inday had worked for many years with my relative, who had, on my prodding, been paying premium for her to the Social Security System (SSS) during her last few years of work. Inday had since retired and gone back to her hometown in the Visayas, looking forward to a simple but comfortable life, with help from her SSS retirement payments.
Unfortunately, Inday never got around to getting an SSS card, which the local office was asking for. So she was now in Manila to try to get that card. I asked why she had to come all the way to Manila, presuming that queues would be shorter and the staff would be friendlier in the offices outside Manila?
Inday corrected me with a litany of complaints. The queues are longer because people come in from all over the region, from the most far-flung municipalities, and it's often chaotic, she explained, with missing and lost records and people generally not knowing what to do.
Worse, she said, corruption is endemic, from the lowest-ranking clerks upwards. She'd experienced that lethal look from clerks, a bored smile that said it all: "It will take time, maybe a few weeks, maybe a few months, to process your papers ... unless you want it facilitated."
She had been approached by fixers offering to help her with the retirement payments, if she agreed to pay a certain amount (it varied, from several hundreds to a thousand pesos) and if she agreed to give them a percentage of each retirement check.
I was horrified thinking of the scenarios. Maybe the SSS people were really honest and the fixers were outsiders and con artists who would run off with the facilitation fee. But the fact that they could roam the SSS office freely said something. And if perceptions were widespread about the need to go through these facilitators, then we probably have an even worse situation, of vicious thieves with connections within the SSS, able to tamper with the payments so the "brokers" could get their monthly cut.
Victimizing the victims
I guessed then. Now I can answer Muhadjir that yes, corruption has seeped down to the rank and file, and in the most vicious ways because people already beaten to the ground by poverty find themselves again victimized by corruption.
I'm not surprised that the poor complain constantly about all the documents they have to get from government agencies, from birth certificates to clearances from the National Bureau of Investigation, to health and retirement benefits. The procedures, and forms to fill out, can be daunting, and it almost seems they were intentionally made that way to breed niches for fixers and corrupt clerks.
It's infuriating because the poor do end up paying more, relative to their income, squeezed for every centavo they can give. And the poor are only to willing to pay the bribes because they do benefit in the end, even if to get paltry benefits like SSS retirement checks, which are then further reduced by the fixers' share. The wiser ones, like Inday, pay to come up to Manila to avoid the fixers, figuring the investment for the trip is better than giving up 10 percent of their monthly retirement checks.
Think of the variations here. A friend of mine had to go and claim his driver's license from the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority for a traffic violation. He got the smiles and the hints of delays, but he persisted and paid the prescribed P500. All around him, he could see and hear the wheeling and dealing, mainly involving jeepney and taxi drivers, who would pay under the table because they could not afford to wait. A day without a driver's license meant lost income. They paid P1,000 instead of P500, but still figured they came out winning because they could get back to work. Others paid because they didn't want the offense encoded into the computers and into their records.
It doesn't occur to these drivers that they actually lost P500 because of the bribe. Or, that other people lose, too, since the system encourages bad drivers to repeat their offenses because they know they can get away with it, again and again.
As corruption becomes the norm, the way to get things done, we can expect the poor to be victimized even more, the stakes increasing as more low-rank crooks and fixers compete. I've heard of many stories of intrigues among the clerks, of a pirating of clients, or of double-crosses when it comes to dividing up the loot. All this is bound to worsen as government cuts back on personnel even as the population grows, together with all the bureaucratic requirements.
These petty thieves are never going to get millions in kickbacks, but a few dozen victims a day can mean a more than comfortable life, maybe so much so that they won't even need to queue up for their retirement checks, when their time comes.
posted by Dante at 9:55 AM
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