Is corruption inborn in democracy?

‘No. But… Said one Filipino senator a couple of weeks ago: “Lahat naman corrupt, tanggapin niyo na lang.

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(Part One)

(We are all corrupt, just accept it),” slurring all of the Senate, or all politicians. Or maybe all Filipinos carrying on, as he suggests, hypocritically ina so-so democracy.

Most of the time, “culture” is blamed. But in a Philippines where roots stories are not updated with new science, appeals to cultural explanation yield misguided, often ridiculous answers.

One misguided answer is that Filipinos, averse to rules, can’t help flouting them. May we all be averse to stereotypes and hold out for tougher answers. (More on this in future columns.)

For now, this senator's classic peanut butter smear — spread the gunk all around enough, blame is diffused, no one is accountable — entertains cynics.

What doesn’t entertain anyone is the gut feel that the corruption may be permanent and natural. This unfunny sense of something-the-matter comes out of deeper parts of the Filipino heart than where the manipulative one-liners of politicians impact.

Even the cynics get it that runaway corruption ends in a failed state. Meanwhile, for many Filipinos, life is lived as though in a claustrophobic room with no doors or windows, locking everyone in with the baddest actors — this lived democracy.

Is it democracy though?

WORMS AND WORMS

Democracy corrupted, suggest some. “Corrupt,” the word, used to have great use to call up images of decaying bodies. What happens after death is bodily corruption, the work of worms and bacteria and natural decomposition of organic matter.

This word/image in time took on a double meaning — moral perversion and depravity on one hand, and on the other, betrayal of trust — as modern democracies emerged in the 20" century. Corruption is now the worm that eats the guts of a democratic project. The image today is still wormy in the new usage.