“Graft and corruption in government has become so endemic that it cannot be solved”
A UNITED Nations panel had observed that graft and corruption in all branches of the Philippine government is still pervasive.
True enough, graft and corruption is so pervasive that I believe it is the biggest factor why the country has not progressed enough as it should, Santa Banana!
I have been a journalist for over seven decades now, and having covered most of the branches of government, I can say graft and corruption in government has become so endemic that it cannot be solved. My gulay!
I am almost 98 years old and in my younger days I covered the Bureau of Customs, which was the No. 1 most corrupt branch of government where smuggling was the order of the day.
Truth to tell, no smuggler in his right mind would be so brave and stupid to smuggle anything without being in cahoots with people at Customs.
Knowing that Customs was the most corrupt branch of government, I made it #1 in my beat to find out why it was so corrupt.
Having developed friends at Customs at that time, I learned that almost every branch of the department was corrupt.
When shipments are passed through Customs, the first thing Customs does is the valuation. This is where corruption begins.
Santa Banana, I could not believe that there are always “fixers” at the bureau itself. And soon enough, “fixers” were prohibited from Customs, but in their place the bureau officials became “fixers” themselves.
Upon further inspection of Customs at their offices at the Port of Manila, I saw desk drawers always open.
When I wrote about that when I was Business Editor at the old Philippines Herald in the 70s, I soon learned that the reason why desk drawers were always open was that “fixers” were always ready to drop money in those open drawers of the bureau officials.
This reminded me so much of the pervasive graft and corruption in Japan during the 1950s after the war.
In the 1950s, after the war, I wanted to see how the Reparation Law was being implemented. I was told that to see is to believe what was happening in Tokyo.
Thus, I went to Tokyo to find the truth. It was unbelievable what I saw. Commissioners involved with the implementation of the Reparation Law were so brazen. They would meet at a hotel to undergo negotiations with people seeking reparation.
They got kickbacks upon approval, so much so that some people who were not entitled to reparation even got approved.
With so many instances of graft and corruption smuggling being written in newspapers, then Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. sought to solve graft and corruption at Customs.
Soon enough, the government officials at the finance department took the example of Indonesia which was also being bothered by smuggling.
This is where the well-known SGS or Societe Generale de Surveillance came in. But the cost was not cheap, my gulay!
With smuggling at Customs temporarily stopped by SGS, politicians and businessmen were all complaining because of the cost of SGS to the government
This began a concerted campaign at all outlets of media aimed at the SGS, complaining that SGS itself was corrupt.
Soon, members of Senate and members of the House of Representatives were all complaining about the cost of SGS. It was a concerted attack since most of the politicians themselves were involved in the graft and corruption at Customs.
The President himself had no other choice but to cancel the contract with SGS.
Soon after, smuggling and graft and corruption continued, but at a minimum.
Customs itself tried to solve the problem by trying to automate the valuation of shipments entering by hiring IBM.
Smuggling was minimized, but it continued some other way. For instance, smuggled items in warehouses were raided. But this was just a ploy because what was raided was a small amount of the smuggled items. Santa Banana, happy days were there again at Customs.
Well, that’s why graft and corruption can be pervasive because public officials themselves are corrupt.
How to end once and for all graft and corruption in government which is so pervasive that even the UN panel is concerned?
Just how to end graft and corruption, not only at Customs but in other branches of government, remains the big problem.
Just to end it appears impossible. Smuggling becomes a national security threat when it involves illegal drugs and other products that threaten people . That’s why I say smuggling at Customs has become endemic.
In my succeeding column, I will continue writing about graft and corruption in other branches of government which to me, as a journalist, appears pervasive.
It has become an endemic problem and appears to be impossible to stop.