Teaching honesty at home and school: The start of fighting corruption

Every so often, headlines jolt us into the harsh reality that corruption in government remains widespread.

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Reports of ghost projects, anomalous contracts, and staggering kickbacks — most recently in flood-control infrastructure — remind us that billions of pesos intended to save communities from disaster are instead siphoned into private pockets. The flooding worsens, lives are disrupted, and trust in government erodes even further.

The brazenness of these schemes is no longer shocking, which is perhaps the saddest part. Corruption has become so normalized that the public merely shrugs, half expecting every big project to be tainted. It is as though dishonesty has seeped into the country’s bloodstream, passed down from one generation to the next.

This leads to an uncomfortable question: do we need to teach honesty as a formal lesson in schools? Isn’t honesty supposed to be part of a child’s upbringing, nurtured at home and reinforced by society’s values? Shouldn’t the distinction between right and wrong — that corruption is theft, that kickbacks are betrayal — be as clear as day?

And yet, when corruption is so deeply entrenched, perhaps a deliberate effort is needed to rebuild the moral foundations. Just as we teach mathematics, science, and language, why not teach ethics as a practical subject? Not in lofty, abstract terms, but in ways children can understand: that taking what does not belong to you is wrong, that cheating for personal gain harms others, that public money is for public service.