This is a sensitive topic, mostly because of the generally held belief that corruption is the cause of all our nation’s ills, and we cannot succeed unless we stamp it out. I will admit I used to be in this camp, but after a few years of digging deeper (and fact checking via the internet) I’m of the opinion that corruption is (obviously) a bad thing, but that other countries have managed to be successful despite corruption. As a reference (using transparency international’s corruption index and the IMF GDP per capita index) Belarus and the Philippines have the same level of (perceived) corruption (2.4 on a scale of 1-10 where 1 is corrupt and 10 is not corrupt) and yet Belarus has a GDP per capita that is almost four times our own. This an extreme example of course, but helps to prove my point.
In any case, corruption remains a popular topic of discussion, and many candidates over the years have promised to stamp it out. Even Erap promised “walang pamilya, walang kaibigan…” and look where that got us. Because of this I find it hard to stomach anyone whose platform constitutes “getting rid” of corruption without really mentioning how. The general premise is that we’re too soft on criminals, and that once we go down hard on lawbreakers everything will be fine. That’s all well and good but no president so far has proven to have the gumption for this, and indeed I am morbidly curious as to how far the shit will hit the fan if anyone even really tried to dislodge these people with vested interests; the bloodbath would be horrendous. One candidate even mentioned that his main goal upon becoming president would be to catch a corrupt official within a month (or was it year, forgive me if I misquote) of his presidency. Good for him, but can he catch ‘em all? And if he does, what happens when his 6 years are up?
Gibo has a different solution, one that is espoused by the Singaporean government; reward people who do a good job in governance. It’s not a ridiculous idea, indeed many of you must have some sort of incentive schemes where you work. In my old job we were promised an extra 100 pesos a day if we got in before 8AM. I consistently came in before 8 mostly because I liked avoiding rush hour traffic but the 100 peso bonus was a nice little incentive as well. Gibo suggests a similar thing for government employees (take note that employees means the president and the chain of command as well). He gives the example of a government employee that somehow manages to save the country a billion pesos. Is he rewarded for it? No. Now if instead of saving the government a billion pesos and instead taking a 10 peso bribe (theoretically, though of course the sums involved are much larger) what happens? He is punished and castigated by his peers and by society for being a crook. Gibo argues that this is a deficiency in the Philippine population, the tendency to call a spade a spade and refuse to see anything in grey, despite the fact that life is hardly ever black and white. We hold our public officials to the highest standards but fail to reward them when they do good. His carrot and stick solution would seek to balance the punishment of bad behavior with rewards for good behavior, ideally creating an atmosphere where it is seen as advantageous (or even at the very least an acceptable alternative) to not be corrupt.
I should note that this is one of the videos in which Gibo speaks about the importance of institutions. This is very important, as the idea of strong institutions is pervasive in Gibo’s platform of good governance, but this is something I’ll try to tackle in another post.
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