Since I started writing this blog (only recently, I admit) I've tried hard to avoid making purely negative comments without offering at least some small suggestion for improvement. But today I saw a line in the newspaper, for which I can offer no advice. Just a sad observation. The paper was the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the article was entitled "Filipino ballet star returns home to culture shock". The article itself is not important. The line that got my attention though, says: You know, I'm just a poor foreigner who may not really understand the country as well as some, but I have to ask why we continue to use the corruption label to distinguish any one administration from another. Marcos was still president when I first arrived in this country, and the truth is, I don't see any difference today at all. Sure, the thefts may be a little more sophisticated nowadays, but I don't think they are any less common."Marcos, whose regime was marked by massive corruption, was deposed in 1986 following a popular revolt. But successive presidents have failed to solve the country's problems of huge poverty and a gaping rich-poor chasm."
And by the way, it's also not accurate to separate the issue of corruption from the issues of poverty and the "rich-poor chasm". The country actually has plenty of money. Poverty and the Grand Canyon which divides the rich and the poor are the direct result of massive corruption. Money, which should be used for building roads and schools and social programs for the whole country, is instead used to buy mansions and cars and vacations abroad for a select few.
Maybe we should find a new label to describe that sad chapter of Philippine history. Maybe we should call it the "stayed in power for 20 years without benefit of an election" regime. But it certainly doesn't make sense to single that administration out as the only "corruption regime".
A collection of observations, discoveries, and general ramblings about Philippine politics and society, written by a guy who loves the country dearly -- in spite of the fact that it's slowly driving him crazy!
- accountability (10)
- citizenship (1)
- corruption (11)
- discipline (5)
- honor (8)
- insurgency (1)
- law enforcement (7)
- leadership (6)
- random (9)
- traffic (1)
"It's no use saying 'We are doing our best'. You have got to do what is necessary."
"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
"I cannot accept, your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."
"The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing."
Winston Churchill
"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little."
Edmund Burke
"I cannot accept, your canon that we are to judge pope and king unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they do no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the other way against holders of power ... Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lord Acton
"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."
David Brin
"The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution."
Justice Louis D. Brandeis
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke
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