Overview:

>What are graft and corruption?

>How are graft and corruption manifested in the Philippines?
>How did Corruption came to be in the Philippines?
>What are the causes of graft and corruption?
>What are their costs?
>How can we fight it?

DEFINITIONS:
>Corruption -Pertains to the use of public office for private gain
>Graft-Refers to the questionable acquisition of wealth by a person in office

CHARACTERISTICS:
>Corruption always involves more than one person.
>On the whole, it involves secrecy.
>Entails mutual obligation and benefit.
>Corrupt practices are usually given some legal justification
>It involves deception.
>In any form, it is a betrayal of the public trust.
>It rests on a contradictory dual function.
>It violates the duty and responsibility within the civic order.

Philippine Setting:
>Corruption in the Philippines is endemic and metastatic
>Income side: Use of government power to extort money
>Expenditure side: malversation of public funds

Brief History of Corruption in Philippines:

There is a long history of graft and corruption within the government of the
Philippines. This corruption reached its apex during the height of the Marcos regime.

Corruption and thievery was so bad under the rule of Ferdinand Marcos that in the
late 1980s, the Guinness Book of Records listed the Philippines as the all-time most
corrupt government in the history of the world.

The Marcos government was labeled a kleptocracy, literally meaning that it was a
government ruled by thieves. A kleptocracy can be defined as a dishonest form of
governmental corruption where the government exists solely to increase the
personal wealth and power of its officials and the ruling class without regard for the
wider population. From the years 1972 to 1983 the United States provided $2.5
billion in bilateral military and economic aid to the Marcos regime, and about $5.5
billion through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank. Marcos took a large
percentage of the United States aid money for himself and his cronies. In 1986, 56
Filipino Assemblymen signed a resolution calling for the impeachment of President
Marcos for alleged diversion of U.S. aid for personal use, citing a July 1985 San Jose
Mercury News expose of the Marcoses multi-million dollar investment and property
holdings in the United States. The properties allegedly amassed by the Marcos
family were the Crown Building, Lindenmere Estate, and a number of residential
apartments (in New Jersey and New York), a shopping center in New York, mansions
(in London, Rome and Honolulu), the Helen Knudsen Estate in Hawaii and
condominiums in San Francisco, California. Bribery, embezzlement, vote buying and
illegal gambling were rampant under Marcos rule in the Philippines. Marcos looted
billions of dollars from the Filipino treasury, and the corruption reached its highpoint with the assassination of Marcos political opponent Benigno Aquino. Graft has
subsided in recent years, and in 2007 the Philippines ranked last place in the 13
Asian economies that were studied.

Dynamics:
>It encourages corrupt high ranking officials to remain corrupt
>At the lower level, it frustrates younger officials
>The problem is so entrenched that it creates a vicious cycle with various nuances

General Causes:
>Absence/weakness of leadership
>Weakness of religious influence
>Colonialism
>Lack of education
>Poverty
>Absence of punitive measures

>Structure of government

Causes in the Philippines:

>Historical Philippine political development
>Patron-client political culture
-Personalistic character of our politics
-Political relationships as systems of exchange

Costs to Public:
>On politics, administration, & institutions
>Economic effects
>Environmental & Social effects
>Effects on Humanitarian Aid
>Other areas, health, public safety, education, trade
>Encouragement of criminality

How to Fight Corruption:

>Political Culture / Discourse
>It is imperative to clearly define what corruption consists of
>Economic Reform
>A much more level economic playing field should reduce corruption
>Anti-Corruption Campaigns