An Amnesty for Corruption?

The Philippines was at one time the most “westernized” of Asian countries, with prolonged influence from the Spanish and Americans. In fact it was and still is the only Catholic Asian country. Some of its people have names that appear to be western rather than Asian. Seemingly more democratized, you would have expected it to fare better. Unfortunately, democracy did not live up to its promises.

How is it that with all the democratic institutions such as free speech, free elections, etc, the country did not progress as much as some of the other countries such as Malaysia where there is no real freedom of speech and opposition leaders get arrested under the internal security law?

The finger can be pointed at corruption. Corruption deeply entrenched in society is such a curse that infant democracy cannot get rid of it. President Aquino had good intentions but corruption persists.

Corruption is bad, a big SIN. There is no other way to look at it. Even the fear of punishment from the Almighty God will not deter people of any religion from being corrupted.

Two recent corruption cases were in the news recently. One in Malaysia involved someone who is a friend of the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister. The Malaysian Ministry of Defence, which the Deputy Prime Minister headed as defense minister, paid 1 billion euros (RM4.5 billion at that time) for the purchase of submarines. A company in which this friend has interests, Perimekar, received a commission of 114 million euros, a whopping 11 percent of the sales price of the submarines. This matter has received media attention now because the person involved is on trial for murder, with two Malaysian army personnel, of his Mongolian lover. Talk about transparency in government decisions!

The second case is from Indonesia. The Sydney Morning Herald on 23 May reported on a corruption trial. US$2.85 billion sourced from public funds was lost in a loan given to an Indonesian tycoon some years ago. The Indonesian Attorney-General’s office dropped the fraud charge against the tycoon. Two days later, a state prosecutor was arrested in the tycoon’s house with a box containing US$600,000 in cash. Also arrested was a woman business associate of the tycoon, who claimed she was only lending the money to the state prosecutor. The state attorney had apparently organized for the woman to meet a junior attorney-general and the director of special crimes to discuss the investigation into the loan from Bank Indonesia. The latter two people have not been implicated in any corruption charge. (I have to give credit to President Yudhoyuno for his anti-corruption intiatives in Indonesia; the same cannot be said of Prime Minister Badawi of Malaysia who planned an anti-corruption drive that went nowhere).

We are not talking of small bucks in the above cases; money belonging to the people.
114 million euros in Malaysia and US$2.85 billion in Indonesia; money that could been used to build hospitals, schools, roads, etc.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, so to say. Big money decisions are made all the time. Corruption changes the way decisions are made. You can say the decisions that are made will not be the right ones or the best ones, because it will no longer be a fair process. In any corrupt society, you can bet many sub-optimal decisions are made every day! Imagine the costs to society.

No matter what values or religion you have, or from what standpoint you look at it, there is no justification for corruption. Corruption is wrong. Corruption is a crime against society, against humanity! The penalty should be severe for such a crime.

Corruption can only be eradicated if there is solid political will, something that we seldom see. Human failings than strength (of leaders) are more common in anti-corruption drives. For example, you are the president of a nation and you have good intentions of fighting corruption. You set about and get a few people arrested for corruption. Then you ultimately find that your greatest ally in politics is corrupted. Do you put a sting operation, arrest him or her, and lose some of your own support base?

After thinking long and hard, this idea comes to mind. It is not an original idea. It does not matter; it may work. Offer an amnesty for a certain period of time. This is not dissimilar to the amnesty for crimes during the apartheid years in South Africa. Own up and return some of the money, and you can live the rest of your life as a free man. In the process of owning up, you will have to provide details of how you obtained the money. This means names will be given to the authorities. This will put more pressure on other people to own up in case their names have been provided by others.

It may seem counter-intuitive, allowing the robbers of society to get away. But it appears to me that this is one way of fighting corruption. It is worth trying.