OF GRAFT AND CORRUPTION, MORALITY
AND IMMORTALITY
By: Jay de Leon

It must have been in my early high school years when I started really seeing the difference between the “haves” and the “have nots” in the Philippines. I saw a lot of the “haves” when I went to school, an elite, ivy-league school with students whose fathers were senators, congressmen, captains of industry, entrepreneurs or just plain landed gentry. I saw the other side of the tracks whenever I went back to my dad’s hometown in the province of Pangasinan. Some of my dad’s relatives were simple folk, not dirt poor, but part of the typical masa, marginalized enough by the economy and the system, and handicapped enough by the national ennui, economic doldrums and cultural baggage.

In one of our discussions on this topic, out of the blue, my dad said, “You know, we could have been one of the richest families in the Philippines.” That got my attention, since my dad was never one to discuss such personal issues, much less to exaggerate. At that time, my dad was a corporate executive, and earned enough income to qualify us as upper middle class. We lived comfortably in a nice house in an affluent neighborhood , and my siblings and I attended the best schools. Of course, that probably made me one of the poorest students in my ivy-league school, but that did not bother me then.

Filipino farmer tries to eke out a living from the land.

So my dad told me his story. In the 1950’s, early in his career, he was one of the rising stars in the Central Bank, a protégé of its head, Governor Miguel Cuaderno, the legendary banker and economist. But more important than that, my dad was the head of the Import-Control division, authorizing dollar transactions for all Philippine imports. He said that people automatically assumed he would ask for a bribe, and would be shocked when he told them there was no “facilitation” fee necessary. Some could not believe it and would open his desk drawer and actually put money in it. My dad said he had to chase a few to hand the money back to them.

Unable to stomach the rampant graft and corruption around him, he started an accounting practice as a CPA for a couple of years, then became a private banking and insurance executive for the duration of his working life in the Philippines.

My dad immigrated with his family to the U.S. in his early 60’s, found work as an accountant till the forced retirement age of 70 years old to see the last of his children through college, and died a few years ago in his late 80’s. It would be an exaggeration to say he died penniless, but my guess was, if he was not unduly worried about his bank account 50 years ago, he never worried about it during his retirement years.

President Ferdinand Marcos

I read all the stories of graft and corruption about the Philippines from the prism of that experience. It is a historical fact that the degree of graft and corruption in the Philippines has been stratospheric from the Marcos era on to the Estrada regime (some say to the current regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but that’s another article). A recent survey out of Hong Kong just a few months ago ranked the Philippines as the second most corrupt country in Asia to do business.

President Joseph Estrada

I chuckle every time I read the actual technical criminal charge against Marcos and Estrada for their crime, “plunder.” I envision the Goths and Visigoths and Vandals sacking Rome and outlying Roman towns, leaving behind them death and destruction and untold misery. I always thought that Marcos and Estrada were even better plunderers. They did not even have to endure any harsh winters to lay siege to any town, I am sure their loot was much more substantial, and their political legacy and financial burden on the Filipino people should bring much more untold misery for generations to come.

Alaric’s Goths sacking the city of Rome

Speaking of Rome, my teen-aged son Mitch and I are movie buffs, and one of our recent favorites was “Gladiator.”  I must also mention that both of us are martial artists, so the battles and gladiatorial scenes are of special interest to us. Okay, the movie is a wee bit on the violent side. As a parent, I had to offer some insight into all this bloodshed.  So I asked Mitch what the lesson of the movie was. Mitch offered that it was a classic action movie about the triumph of good over evil. But, I asked Mitch, the hero died in the end. How did good triumph over evil?

The Emperor Caesar (Richard Harris) knew he was dying, and was concerned about his legacy to Rome. Would it be his conquests? His general, Maximus (Russell Crowe), had just vanquished the last of the barbarians in the opening scene. Caesar concluded that his legacy would be to make Rome a republic again. Upon his death, there would be a conservator, a trustee until Rome could be a republic again. He wanted Maximus as the successor-in-trust, and not his own son Commodus (JoaquinPhoenix), “because Commodus is not a moral man. Commodus proves his father right by strangling his own father, Caesar, to become the next Caesar himself and killing Maximus and his family.

But Mitch was right after all. It was a morality play, and good did triumph over evil in the end. Caesar posthumously got his republic, Maximus was reunited with his family in the Elyssian Fields, and Commodus descended into Hades for his evil deeds.

Russell Crowe (right) and Richard Harris in “Gladiator”

I cannot believe that Marcos, Estrada and their ilk would trade immortality for plunder. Is it true that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely? If you were in the shoes of either former President, what would you have done? Graft and corruption, or morality and immortality? Would you have been a moral man?