Thursday, July 12, 2007

CBCP News


GRAFT AND CORRUPTION UNLIMITED

GRAFT and corruption in the government and its agencies are so endemic and extensive that socio-political integrity in governance has seemingly become a moral impossibility to achieve during the remaining three-year tenure of the present national leadership. While it cannot be denied that same curses upon the people were already existent during the past administrations, the present one made them its distinct flagship. That is why, shameful and painful though it may be, the country has been just recently declared as the most corrupt in Asia—with neither regret nor reservation. Poor infrastructures and deficient social service. Underdeveloped educational system and consequent illiteracy. Joblessness, poverty and hunger. Unrest and dissent. These and many other serious national maladies find their combined basic causal factor in graft and corruption.

No amount of glorious pronouncement and glowing predictions by the administration and its allies will make any real difference. No so-called positive approach by the national leadership could reverse the negative realities in the country. It made a big mess of the national socio- economic and political situation that no mere cute moves, big smiles and chosen embraces for media purposes could change the many existing national maladies.

How could the country move on when its serious questions on the truth and integrity about no less than the 2004 national elections remain unanswered? This is not to mention something about fertilizers or city and national roads, about the most expensive boulevard in the world, and a host of other unresolved mysteries in the handling of public funds.

How could the repeated calls of the administration for national unity be considered serious when it is precisely the worst and standing cause of disunity in the country? The extrajudicial killings and abductions go on. The nation is considered as one of the most dangerous places for media practitioners. The Philippines is listed as the 100th least peaceful country in the world.

How could but the envisioned change of some disfavored heads of government owned and controlled corporations really reverse the disturbing over-all national situation? This is but a concrete sample of administrative cosmetology—with the over-all reality of the administration remaining the same.

The national predicament ultimately caused by graft and corruption is so compound and complex that it rests beyond remedy by merely dear and endearing verbal resolves by the present administration.

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