Radical concept might well end rampant corruption in third world countries

While force majeure has a lot to do with the recent calamitous flooding in the Philippines, the worse to have happened in 40-years, and typhoon Ondoy had dumped a month total of rainfall in one day; the experience and aftermath speak of volumes in sufferings to the Filipino people for lost lives and properties. The misery of the people could have been minimized, or better yet, managed, to adapt a trendy concept.

I know I should not tire from being critical of the country, for we know and the world, of the travails it has been in trek for good many years. Three factors, in my judgment, were the harbingers of unending malaise of the country.

Dirty Politics

Always, the past bears on the present in but two ways, good or bad. In Philippine politics, the great debacle occurred under Marcos watch. The twenty years dictatorial rule had caused the irreversible tattering of the national economic and moral fabric suffered by the country. Marcos´ brand of politics combined atrocity and lunacy. He introduced to the nation, and he left an embarrassing, unsurpassed notch in historical world record -- that corruption can be had in magnitude scale with impunity. Todate, the fabled dictator´s loots pursuits are a saga of struggle for victims continuing its battles in courts.

Labeled the Granddaddy of larceny by the foreign media, successions of administrations, thenceforth, all have failed to hold steady the economic and moral keel of the country. Marcos´ blueprint of corruption provided the schematic map that political predecessors adopted with similar success, amassing wealth in short period from ascendancy. Except, perhaps, for Cory Aquino, the rests had stains in their hands. That brand of Philippine politics is truly dirty to the grime, and a label that sticks out irreverently to the country´s honor.

Un-empowered citizenry ingrained with debilitating attitude

Impervious to changes and criticisms, the political machinery has systematically and continually deplored the Filipino people. Unemployment skyrocketed unabated to 11% in early 2000; 7.32% in 2008. Professionals and skilled workers scamper to leave the country or perish from hunger. Apparently, the wave of the idea was another of the grand schemes, if not stupidity demonstrated by the administrations to govern by creating jobs for the people as priority. Sloth minds and lacking creativity, the government instead took on actively putting up POEA to act as the job recruitment, utilizing diplomatic missions to obtain employment contracts from foreign governments. This modern- day enslavery has resulted to countless body bags returned home to the Philippines; also, an increase in incidents of physical and sexual abuses perpetrated against the hapless contract workers, in particular, the hapless women; and a burgeoning numbers of unduly incarcerated Filipino expatriates languishing in jails in the lands of their masters. Often, the Philippine government was impotent to address the problem judiciously, fearing retaliatory slash of workers demand from the insensible, atrocious, noveau riche foreign governments.

The process of pursuing the proverbial greener pasture by the Filipinos also gave rise to voluminous heartrending stories of people, having been bilked of their savings and properties, and indebtedness to usurious lenders. The financial ruin adding to their impoverishment are narratives commonly held by the victims quietly anguish.

At that time and now, many Filipinos remain denigrated to the lowest rung of needs. Like ants, they are focused and steady on working hard. As a result, they are totally diverted from other functions of society, such as, in their participatory role in the check and balance of power. In the absence of a vigilant watch, the leadership is merrily abusing its power, dipping their hands on every country´s resource funds. This denigration in status has given rise to the Filipinos attitude sliding, growing apathetic and self-defeatist even on issues begging their scrutiny.

Geographic position of the country

Seemingly isolated in the east tropical latitude, Philippines, a fractious archipelago of 7100 islands, is geographically located in the typhoon belt and in the ring of fire zone. So that, time and time again, natural calamities taking forms in typhoons and earthquakes, have battered the country almost to surrender. But resiliency is a natural bouy inherent in all humans that brings up the spirit when down. With that trait, Filipinos are noted survivors. Even in devastation, we´ve been noted to be light-hearted as found out recently by an American rescue team leader, an ability to smile in the midst of devastation. So it was for this urchin; who learned to passionately admire and write, in poetic syncopation, the beauty in strong winds thrilling to point of hallucination. Witnessing the sheer power of the wind to roil and wreck havoc in the environment in few hours of interminable energy, to me, was a show of awesome force deeming respect.

Now back to the present. Once again, the cataclysmic wrath of Ondoy was one in few of the epic storms recorded in the annals. It revealed how pathetic the country was, and in the aftermath. On sullen, awed, bewildered, despondent faces of the Filipinos depicted the gravity of the situation. People seemed to have awakened to a reality too painful and scary; vulnerability they all face in a country with least of preparedness to secure their safety. In a global scale, weather has gone wacky and more pernicious, it presents more troubling scenario to the Filipinos.

As of this writing, areas in the metropolitan Manila stayed submerged for days. Hundred thousands people displaced from their flimsy and ramshackle homes of the squatters are held in evacuation centers, waiting for the government action to rehabilitate them. Some entertainers and many well-to-do victims had the misfortune of losing their homes, cars, and personal properties to floodwaters.

Initially, I have surmised that the sewage system in the Philippines has not been improved to meet the present conditions. Medieval was how I described the existing drainage choking from all kinds of known human garbage dumped without regard. The UNDF on their assessment conformed to my lay observation. But inroads to improving the sewage/drainage system are being hijacked time and again, either by lack of funds or funds allocated that are mostly pocketed by crooked bureaucrats in complicit with construction companies, and leaving but a trickle of the original earmark for the project.

This is the ubiquitous and infuriating culture the Philippines got enmeshed itself in a quagmire of corruption. Administrations after the other are tainted by unbridled thievery, thus, the country I liken to a host, is sickly -- sucked up by the parasitic leaders. The economy and infrastructure are crumbling. This was highlighted in the recent Ondoy visit; there was no sustaining foundation to provide support to the rescue efforts. Like a mendicant, the Filipinos accustomed to being beneficiaries, picked up the phone and dials for augmenting funds worldwide. Exactly, it was the scenario we saw on TV, where phone banks were immediately set up sending SOS to the world through the wires.

I was least pleased by the idea. How appalling a scene to watch, I had thought, to see on how the Filipinos would go bothering, knocking on doors of the world´s homes begging, and even if they were targeting the Filipino expatriates who are overburdened by necessary transmittals to families, that ultimately lands into the governmental pipelines and channeled to the same politicians´ personal pockets. Personally, I see beauty in people coming to the aid of their compatriots in times of exigencies. It is a time-tested humanitarian show of goodwill. However, in the case of countries like the Philippines, where corruption has a stranglehold on development projects, a line needs to be drawn, and concretely.

Radical but pragmatic here´s my idea drawing on my belief that individual countries should take the responsibility for the entire nation´s needs, in same way individual citizens ably cope for its own. This same principle should be made a criterion towards releasing aid funds for calamities, by way of a pre-evaluation showing how much structural improvements were done to ease, if not prevent, magnitude calamities from impacting on the people. It is to be viewed as a form of discipline, and hopes to impress on rogue countries the accountability of a leader to its people. That corrupt governance is not to be tolerated anymore, or else suffer the consequence of isolation and abandonment in times of calamities. This may sound rigid, bordering inhuman, but considering the wealth usurped by crooked political heads, the measure should serve as a monitor. And punishment meted equivalent to the wrongdoing and treachery being committed against the people by leaders avowing to serve with integrity.

Changes in our world are happening very rapidly. In my own perspective, it is like a backlash dealt at us by Mother Nature, for all the abuses we have inadvertently perpetrated against her. In a time when natural convulsions occur ever so frequently, it behooves for donor countries to withhold relief funds, allocate it to more meaningful and productive ways to advance the causes of humanity. The world resources are there for all to have an access to, and not to be in held by the few exclusive, undeserving, unscrupulous leaders. Let this be the mantra for the new emerging world that is equitable.