Too old to blush?

April 17, 2008  --  Got something to say?
Print This Post Print This Post

Notebook By Juan L. MercadoBy Juan L. Mercado
Sleaze spreading throughout this region left Asian Development Bank’s chief economist Ifzal Ali wondering: “Where did the ‘shame, associated with corruption’, disappear to?, he asked. Perhaps, far too many here, as the old saw claims, grew too old to blush.’

People have become “very shameless” about graft, Ali noted. “A draconian system may not be feasible. ( But ) if people were shamed into avoiding unethical things, that may be a step forward.”

Seneca nurtured the same hope. “Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit”, this Stoic Roman philosopher wrote. Even in his lifetime, ( 3 BC to 65 AD ) rulers and cronies colluded.

“In ancient China , concubines bribed eunuchs to bring them to the emperor’s bed’, a former UN colleague recalls. “The Kitchen God’s lips were rubbed with pork, on New Year’s eve, so, he’d report favorably, on one’s household, to the Jade Emperor in heaven.”

“We haven’t lost shame because, in China, Malaysia or Thailand , many never felt corruption shameful,” he added. “It was an acceptable way of doing things speedily.”

Does the difference now stem from the huge amounts? Between 20% to 30% of Indonesia’s development budget were embezzled under Suharto. Makati Business Club estimates that crooks pocket about 29% of government’s capital funds.

“Poor people the world over are most infuriated by the casual corruption of elites rather than by the underpaid soldier or cop seeking ‘baksheesh’, the Economist observed.

Officials and accomplices haul gold, for themselves, to the grave. This frenzy changed both the vocabulary and the symbols. Filipinos branded crooks as: ‘walang hiya”/( without shame). That evolved into today’s ‘kapal-muks’ (thick-faced). Latin Americans retain ‘sin verguenza.’

Indians dub bribe as “speed money”, since it expedites signatures. Filipino called it ‘lagay’, until the ZTE broadband scandal. Then, it became ‘bukol’ — a pus-filled cyst.

Corruption spills across borders, even generations. Security experts say shady border officials look away when Jema-ah Islamiah members shuttle between Malaysia , the Philippines and Indonesia . Carnegie Endowment for International Peace estimates grafters sap China’s economy by US$86 billion a year - more than the annual education budget.

Under the Suharto, Indonesia lost ‘it’s golden years to develop from a poor to a middle-income nation”, Northwestern University notes. Filipino social scientists still have to tally opportunities dissipated by the Marcos dictatorship onwards.

Graft exacerbates disparities. Burmese junta Tan Shwe’s daughter raked in $51 million in wedding day gifts. Most Burmese scrimp on less than a dollar a day. Thus, Yangoon ranked 179 out of 179 countries in Transparency International’s corruption index. We limped in at 131 in this survey, alongside Nepal.
A -51 trust rating, meanwhile, taints First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo, chortles the opposition. Yet, convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada is chairman emeritus of the opposition. He’s flanked by characters who seem drawn, as Rep. Teodoro Locsin once aptly noted, “from a police line-up.”

In this country, Presidents come and go. But like the proverbial weed, cronies survive forever: Lucio Tan, Eduardo Cojuangco, Enrique Razon, De Venecias and ilk thrive whoever sits in the Palace. Crony reign is symbolized by 1,353 overpriced but lightless street lamps installed, during the Asean Summit, in Cebu, Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu.

“Do they blush in Lapu-Lapu?,” echoes a friend who works in a city which hosts lucrative export zones. “Are you kidding? For prime property here, it’s P1-million per hectare for every signature,” he claims.
But there’s “distinguished company”. Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra faces charges of rigging tax breaks for his telecom firm, plus skewed contracts in the $4 billion Suvarnabhumi airport. Indonesia’s speaker of parliament Akhbar Tandjung has been indicted. Malaysia is untangling the mess left by Prime Minister Mahatir’s contracts for favored UMNO allies.

Vietnam arrested a senior anticorruption investigator for allegedly taking bribes. Transparency International predicted little progress in reducing Malaysian sleaze where it’s most pervasive —among the police ‘Who watches the watchmen?”

There is history’s hangover too, Southeast Asian governments are carbon copies of European bureaucracies. ( But ) elite values of the past govern machinations over patronage, and power, says the study: “Tradition and Corruption in Southeast Asia.”

These antiquated political structures survive. Native leaders fuse crass materialism of the West with their aristocratic decadence. The result is the systematic corruption that continues to plague Southeast Asia.
All major ethical systems insist on integrity. They teach that the goods of this earth — from land, food, water to talents — is meant for all. “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions,” the Master insisted.

But the poor get scuppered, when cash makes for right. ‘Net worth equals self-worth here”, a banker explains. Bank balances and car models set the pecking order. Ask Wow-wow-wee host Willie Villarame. He didn’t blush in his Ferrari — until the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group asked about taxes.
Graft makes economic decay inevitable. “O shame, where is thy blush?” asked the Prince of Denmark a.k.a Hamlet.
E-mail: juanlmercado@gmail.com

Share This
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...

Posted by News Team | Filed Under Notebook 

Comments

Got something to say?





Authentic Diecast Model Cars
Close
E-mail It