Breaking the Cycle of Corruption and Violence

As a young child, perhaps five or six years old, I overheard adult table conversations dwelling on the ghastly cheating and violence that plagued the 1949 presidential elections. Elpidio Quirino won that contest as the Liberal Party standard bearer, and he and his party were crucified for their sins over the next three years. The infamous five thousand peso orinola that Quirino reportedly had by his bedside became an item of extreme ridicule. His fate was surely sealed in the next elections slated for 1953.

The Nacionalistas very wisely picked a popular defense secretary, Ramon Magsaysay, as their presidential bet. He had the loyalty of the armed forces so there was some confidence that they would take steps to ensure that there was no repeat of the 1949 terror and violence. He also was heavily rumored to be a creation of the US CIA, and that’s a story for another time.

Magsaysay’s victory, a landslide, which also saw the ascendance of many bright young men into positions of authority, infused the country with an exhilarating enthusiasm for the future. The elections were peaceful and the party in power vowed to serve the needs of the common tao. Surely a new order was in place. True democracy had come to the islands. As a way to bring about good government the president announced a program whereby every citizen could go to their local post office, and, for ten centavos, send a telegram to Malacanang reporting any malfeasance on the part of any government employee.

Those days of hope and inspiration were sadly and painfully dashed when the beloved president perished when his air force supplied DC3 the “Mt. Pinatubo” crashed into Cebu’s Mount Manungal in March of 1957. Hopes were dashed. The future looked gloomy. Carlos Polistico Garcia of Bohol had ascended to the presidency. He was nowhere near the stature of his predecessor. He was renowned as a foremost Visayan poet, or at least a formidable reciter of poems. I remember in a 1957 campaign stop at Cebu’s noted Plaza Independencia he asked whether the assembled throng wanted to hear his platform or whether they preferred the recital of Cebuano poems. The crowd clamored for poetry. The late irreverent Manila Times columnist Joe Guevara nicknamed Garcia the “The Balak Beauty”, balak being the Cebuano word for poet, and the phrase was also meant to be a comical reference to Garcia’s rather dark complexion ( I remember as a 13 year old showing the Guevara column to my late father who very sternly admonished me to never use skin color or appearance as a measure of a human being’s worth – to this day I can still remember in detail that incident; it was my father at his sternest and to this day I thank him for that lesson).

It seems that Magsaysay’s death also saw the demise of “good government”. He had brought many young, enthusiastic, idealistic individuals into his government and many of them were either pushed out by the Garcia crowd or opted out themselves as they did not want to be part of a government that digressed from the Magsaysay program. It seems to me, and I must confess that these are impressions captured by a teenager, that from then on corruption had seeped back into our national psyche and violence in elections had reentered the equation.

The Ampatuans of Cotabato are not unique to Philippine politics nor to life in the provinces. Private armies abound; often more than one group is in place in a town, district, province or region. A “balance of terror” keeps political oligarchs in place and a cowed population can only hope that they never, even in the slightest way, offend the warlord or his minions.

Police forces in many towns and cities more likely are “owned” by one or the other political group. The national police and the other branches of the armed forces are looked upon with suspicion, even fear, by much of the population. They too, often, are allied or associated with one or the other political warlord. Worse yet, they are even suspected of being heads of violent syndicates themselves. A friend in Manila who has a company that requires dealing with several provincial offices and ministries in the capital confided, it hushed whispers, that military officers are silent yet ominous partners in many businesses which get preferential treatment in matters of concessions, expeditious approval of licenses and priority in receiving government payments on contracts.

In the past fifty or so years it seems that both corruption and private armies have become permanent fixtures in our culture and way of life. The Marcoses, in power for twenty one years, elevated corruption to an art form and the system they ran then has often been compared to the way Mafia crime families operate where everyone from the lowest foot soldier up to the “capo di tuti capa” had a bite and a piece of the action, the largest piece reserved for the head of the crime family. The Marcoses also used the regional private armies to help perpetuate their regime.
How do we break this cycle of corruption and violence?

Private armies would not exist nor act with impunity if our police and armed forces did their jobs and enforced the laws without regard for political considerations. As pointed out earlier it is unfortunate that this is not the case because in all likelihood the “warlord” politician or his allies control the law and order mechanisms. It is not surprising, for example, that the command structure of a police force or army unit may have very well ascended to their positions thru the good graces of the congressman or governor or mayor who controls the area. One of the obvious solutions is to see to it that the armed forces as well as police organizations are professionalized. Whoever is elected president on May 10, 2010 must make this a priority. The new president must address the problem both from the top ( start with the PMA?) and support efforts to accomplish this at the ground level moving upwards in partnership with citizens in the cities, towns and barrios. It will not be an easy task but the transformation is essential if democracy is to ever flower.

As for the corruption, we will have to start with us as individuals – we must cease and desist from paying bribes, no matter how small, to bring about a convenience; we have to stop being a part of the problem. There can be no bribe takers if there are no bribe givers. I know in real life this may not be a simple proposition but we have to start somewhere and must start with what we can control i.e., ourselves. It will not be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.