The root of RP’s systemic corruption

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/11/2011



I checked the Chan Robles Internet law library and found Republic Act 9166 of June 2002 defining the lawful salary of a general of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), under “Section 2. Pay Schedule,” as: General, P30,000 (a month); Lieutenant General, P29,000; Major General, P28,000; Brigadier General, P27,000; and so on.

An AFP officer confirmed these figures’ continuing validity today. Thus, with a few extra compensation, such as combat pay, the total take would bring the general’s legal income to only about P50,000 a month. Given this, can any AFP general, commodore, or admiral expect to maintain a standard of living that befits a member of the top echelons of society?

That would be ridiculous to expect. Though some generals and navy brass do live on their meager incomes — which is why nothing irregular is heard of them — others find unseemly ways to attain what they believe they deserve.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) is another such case, where the directors generals’ and various superintendents’ official salaries will never be able to compete with those of Makati junior executives by any stretch. Hence, the necessity of underground activities such as jueteng becoming part of their regular unofficial payroll, from the national down to the local level.

Election upon election promises and threats of damnation from politicians and a long list of Catholic prelates alike have not stopped these jueteng operations from flourishing. Not even the much-vaunted Yellow saint Cory Aquino or her “heirs” have been able to put a lid on the wellspring of jueteng payola going to the PNP and the DILG (Department of Interior and Local Government).

Why? An insight into this can be gleaned from an encounter between a scion of the oligarchy and the anti-jueteng crusader, Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz, where the former was said to have told the bishop to “go easy on jueteng.” My thesis is that the oligarchy consciously wants illicit money sources such as jueteng to thrive in order to contribute largely to the unofficial real income of police generals and government officials. Otherwise, these dogs may just bite their master’s hands if he has nothing to feed them.

A president of the Philippines today officially earns P95,000 a month, which wouldn’t amount to, say, the cost of a brand new Porsche over a six-year term. Although that is 65 percent higher than the immediate predecessor’s monthly pay of P57,750 a month (with the increase signed by the predecessor just before the end of her term), the fact is, it is still low. Since the President’s pay is Salary Grade 33 in the official government pay schedule, the highest in government, all the rest necessarily have to be below that — except for institutions with special pay scales such as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), where janitors can get as much as AFP generals.

Singapore’s Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, whose son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gets $2.8 million today, once made a widely reported tongue-in-cheek comment about a Philippine president’s salary being among the lowest in the world. Even so, a Philippine president can still rake in amounts that rival the highest incomes in the world — but from under-the-table “proceeds.”

If one were to follow government corruption like a maze and work back to its starting point, one may well find this ridiculous government pay schedule as the root of it all. An AFP or PNP general, or even a Cabinet official, with just an official monthly salary that approximates the take home pay of a veteran call center agent doesn’t make sense.

So it has become a way of life among those in government to accept these unofficial incomes as a natural part of the job — as natural as MWSS personnel getting their 30-month bonuses from water concessionaires Manila Water and Maynilad, as if they aren’t supposed to regulate these firms; and as natural as the secretary of Finance cashing in on the CodeNGO deal with fat commissions! You see, it’s not only the generals.

The entire government pay scale is designed to institutionalize dependency on the unofficial, underground and illegal to augment our officials’ pauper-level pays. Whenever I suggest to politicians to do as Singapore does, I always find inexplicable their non-appreciation of the logic. Perhaps it’s because it takes away their excuse for continuously promoting the graft?

After all, the situation is perfect for those who want unlimited graft revenues, where oligarchs control the political leadership through all sorts of bribes or blackmail (as carried out by their media outlets), or even their influence over US-controlled anti-corruption watchdogs such as Transparency International.

Generals Garcia, Rabusa, Ligot, et al.; the PNP and DILG jueteng roster; and lest we forget, regulatory bodies like the Energy Regulatory Commission and the MWSS, ad infinitum, are all controlled by the oligarchy and its foreign partner, the US (the one that really exposed Garcia), through this system that’s designed for corruption.

Understandably, the AFP is flogging itself for the mire of corruption it is in. But to continue doing so, without probing deeper, will just be unfair to the institution. Our AFP men and women should start aiming their sights on the real culprits — the oligarchy and the structure of corruption it has institutionalized through its politicians and media. Such is the root of systemic corruption in this land!

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on “The Roots of RP’s Systemic Corruption;” visit our blogs, http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com)