Can the pork, pronto

Corruption is found in almost all governments in the world, most notably in poor countries where graft pervades almost all branches and levels of government. Since it takes two to tango, it goes without saying that some of those who deal with the government, like the business sector and the NGOs, are sometimes involved in corruption. In this way, corruption becomes a national enterprise.

The cost of corruption is staggering. From initial reports, the P10 billion PDAF, aka pork barrel funds, mostly went to the pockets of senators and congressmen and their spurious NGOs. That is only for the NGO funds that are used for the implementation of soft projects. What about the money that goes to suppliers or contractors of hard projects? These projects are not cheap – the widening or building of new roads and bridges, ports and airport, irrigation systems, schools, hospitals and other public buildings and infrastructure.

According to Transparency International (TI) even projects implemented under UN Millennium Goals is compromised by corruption. The TI says that corruption is estimated to increase the cost of achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal on water and sanitation by US$48 billion.

Corruption, while advantageous to some unscrupulous businessmen, is actually deleterious for the business sector as a whole. The Corruption Perception Index that the TI prepares annually always shows that countries that score badly on the World Bank’s Doing Business Indicators also score badly on the Corruption Perceptions Index.

Corruption increases the cost of doing business. This makes corrupt countries less attractive to investors. Thus, corruption also hurts business and the economy as a whole. When the economy suffers and grows below its potential, the people also suffer. Do you wonder why we have high unemployment rate and poverty incidence? Part of the answer is corruption. It deters investments and job creation and it prevents the country from achieving rapid and inclusive growth.

In a presentation made by Daniel Kaufmann of the World Bank Institute during the 2000 Anti-Corruption in Washington DC, it was shown that in an empty and unattended garage, when one see an envelope which contains 20 bills of US $100 each and if there is no possibility that anyone would know (no cameras, no monitoring, no reporting), 30 percent would report and return the money, 17 percent would kept it and 50 percent undecided. If there is 30 percent probability that information is shared (e.g. 30% that camera is recording the event which may be reviewed), 74 percent would report and return the money, 4 percent would kept it and 22 percent undecided.

One thing that matters, therefore, about corruption is about the possibility of being discovered. Perhaps, our congressmen and senators involved in the P10 billion pork scam were really sure that they would not be discovered. This usually happens in government if everyone is in the take and connives, including the watchdogs themselves.

We need to fight corruption. In his presentation, Kaufmann A simple Formula synthesizing Governance and Anticorruption: Improving Governance and Anti-Corruption = Knowledge and Information or Data plus Leadership (including Political) plus Collective Action (change).The formula in short is IG and AC = KI + LE + CA.

With this formula, Kaufmann presented eight issues: (1) Government in the ‘driver’ seat in A-C program, (2) Focus on very focused A-C plan, (3) Use worldwide data for action program, (4) Technocratic approach to fighting corruption, (5) Paramount: A-C Autonomous Agencies/Commissions; (6) High Pay in public service for combating corruption, (7) Focus: eliminate bureaucratic corruption/discretion, and (8) Strict Enforcement of civil service rules.

The policies suggested by Kaufmann when going into Anti-corruption efforts includes focusing on grand corruption and state capture as root of misgovernance, Broader Governance framework, Collective responsibility and Collective Action, Civil society involvement, Civil liberties, Security of property rights and economic liberalization and Need to address link between corporate (including FDI) and national-level governance.

As for the PDAF or the pork barrel, my suggestion is to can it pronto. My reason is that in our tripartite government structure, it is clear that one branch legislates, another executes and another administers justice. In no case shall one branch do the work of another or there would be only duplication of effort, waste of resources or conflict between branches. What if the President who heads the executive branch also makes laws and passes judgment on certain cases? I am sure the other branches would object.

In the country, however, it just happens that because they have the power to approve the budget, the legislators also think that they have the privilege to allot for themselves some funds for projects that only they can identify and cause to be implemented by another party. Knowing how badly they need these projects or the money that they can get from them to control and influence the minds of their constituents, there is very good reason to think that our legislators are always tempted to pocket a good part of their allotted funds. By canning the pork or where the envelope mentioned above were not there, the temptation to be corrupted is also removed.