Davao City—Prof. Ronald Mendoza, executive director of the Policy Center of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), told an anti-corruption forum here over the weekend that the “abuse of entrusted power” has become wide-ranging as to become “already a system in the country.”
“It is in confusing laws; it is in policies that don’t get implemented; it is in long lines for you to get your businesses registered and get your business permits; it is in the inefficiency of the public sector; it is in the jeepney drivers, taxi drivers and even private operators that don’t follow the rules anymore,” he said.
“This is what perpetuates corruption. This is the impunity that is happening now,” the AIM professor said in Saturday’s breakfast forum on “Confronting Corruption, Changing our Business, Changing our Lives” held at the Royal Mandaya Hotel here.
He said “many of us have this mistaken notion that all we need is some kind of an incorruptible person who takes over the presidency and stop all of the corruption. I have very bad news for you—corruption is so systemic that even if you put a preacher in the presidency, even Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle, really, the corruption is in the system,” he said.
Mendoza cited cases of tolerance and inaction among government regulatory and enforcement agencies to defy existing laws.
He said government’s fight against corruption has not made significant strides, although he acknowledged that there had been improvement in the delivery of services and offering of options.
Former Sen. Joey Lina, who talked on government reform to fight corruption, said, however, that “while we have seen growths in the gross national product, the sad point in this one is that reports have indicated that they only benefited 40 families.”
“We could have grown much bigger and faster if we remove these hindrances and opportunities for corruption,” he said.
Mendoza said corruption in the Philippines “is commonly influenced by three factors: monopoly, discretion and accountability.”
“Every time there is monopolistic condition, there is high risk of abuse. And abuse is further enhanced by the extent and degree of discretion that we give to persons we assigned for certain duties,” he added.
The worse part of the three factors, he said, “is when we take out, or forget the third one: accountability.”