“Calvin: Do you believe in the devil?
You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation,
corruption, and destruction of man?
Hobbes: I'm not sure that man
needs the help.”
It was probably one of the biggest corruption scandals in our province
in the mid-nineties; I was then in high school. It took a more personal
touch because the personalities involved are all too familiar: I
practically grew up with them, my father working in the (then government
but subsequently privatized) corporation embroiled in the scandal. I
saw them during company outings, events, and parties. And my mother was
with the COA team that investigated the anomaly which borne out the
findings that eventually led to the filing of the cases against the
respondents involved. Some of the respondents have fled abroad while one was
found guilty, the guilt affirmed by the Supreme Court.
Said recent promulgation of the Supreme Court of the decision in the
case (see case/jurisprudence below) involving one respondent refreshed my memories; and I have gleaned insights at those events and other cases of corruption which are all
too familiar to me.
Familiarity eases out suspicion, not that I would know the workings of
government at the time, being in my teens then. But you'll
never know who are corrupt or corruptible, yet those who you're familiar
with are oftentimes above suspicion, at least from one's perspective. Nevertheless, it's still
surprising, nay, shocking if those who are involved are six degrees of separation
or less, so to speak, from whom you know. That is, these can be people
you are privy about: familiar, friendly, cheery faces or countenance,
acquaintances or friends of family members, or people whom the community
look up to.
The same thing, more or less, happened many years later. This one involved a balikbayan who
ran (and eventually won) for Congressman in our district. Implicated
was a lady-lawyer whose family was quite familiar to me, and who even
served as Guest Speaker on my fourth year high school Honors Day. The
former was honored by my high school as, if I'm not mistaken, an
outstanding alumnus; the latter graduated from the same high school and
college/university I graduated from and who is/ whose relatives are
friend/s of/with family or friends of friends. All in all, being in a
province where almost everyone knows everybody else, the degrees of separation are not at all that distant.
I won't dwell too much into this second graft/corruption case but I
have read all the pertinent papers, documents and court pleadings (some
of which I drafted for my mother's COA friends) including the COA
reports of the anomaly/discrepancy involving the donated money of a
chamber of commerce for construction projects in the province. The
Congressman (who touts himself as pro-service and financially
well-endowed that he doesn't need to be corrupt---all of which are pure
helium of hot air as toxic as the farts of a thousand
politicians) siphoned as much as P18 Million---yes, that's one-eight followed by six zeroes. The lady-lawyer co-signed
his corrupt boss by acting as the attorney-in-fact, i.e., agent or
representative.
At the rate people gets corrupted or are being corrupt,
this disease is not going anywhere anytime soon. And it's so
malevolent that it strikes anybody: foe, friend, and friends of friends
alike. Beneath the cheery countenance of a common chum may lurk a
contemptible corrupt core.
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