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How to solve corruption
the easy way: Do it yourself!
This is a photo of the cover of the book Total Misconduct by Samuel Clark (Disclosure Publishing, totalmisconduct.com/). It is a true story, the author claims. The book blurb says, 'The book police officials don't t want you to read!' The book presents a detailed account of corruption and official misconduct within the police department of Newark, New Jersey. That's as American as you can get.

That's thousands of miles away. Corruption is everywhere in the world. It started in Paradise, remember? The serpent corrupted Eve who corrupted Adam. When you say the Philippines is the most corrupt country in Asia, or the second, or the third, do you know exactly what you are saying? No you don't. Or, which is the same thing, you're wrong. The problem is corruption everywhere in the world, correct. But, tell me truly, which side are you: The Corruptor or The Corrupt? It takes two to tango. Corruption is a two-way street, not one-way traffic. The reason we have corrupt Americans and corrupt Filipinos is that we have corruptor Americans and corruptor Filipinos. When a driver gives a policeman 'coffee money,' that's corruption. When we apply for a license and we promise (and deliver on our promise) to give a little extra for someone's effort at having our papers processed expeditiously, we're as good as our word but that's corruption. When we 'reward' a BIR agent for 'helping' us with our income tax problems, that's corruption.When we award a bid to the 'lowest' bidder for some financial or other considerations, that's corruption. When you pay people to attend rallies and demonstrations, that's corruption. Corruption is help expedited. I think the only one we don't corrupt is the priest or pastor or preacher, because we can't really pay for sanctifying grace to come on cue.

There must be a lesson there somewhere for all of us. And of course there is. For that, we borrow from the slogan of the World Wide Fund which tells us how to stop the illegal wildlife trade, 'When the buying stops, the killing will too.' To solve corruption, we just rewrite that a bit: 'When the corrupting stops, the corruption will too.' Problem solved!

14 June 2006