Corruption is an abuse of power and money. It comes with different types which depends on the purpose of the person. The most common type of corruption is officials abusing their power to benefit them. It happens mostly on public servants, government officials, and anyone who has power and position on a firm. Every country faces a dilemma caused by corruption and Philippines is one of the countries that is prone to it. There are scandals leaked that proved how rampant corruption is in the country. The reason of its persistency is lack of evidences, no one blows the whistle, and weakness and ineffectiveness of anti-corruption agencies.
If a country faces a scandalous corruption issue, it will be all over the news internationally. In the recent years, Philippines faced a lot of controversies involving corruption. One of the scandals that made noise all over the country was the Pork Barrel Scam. The people involved were an ex-Congressman Constantino Jaraula and the mastermind was Janet Lim Napoles. It took years of investigation to finally solve the case. The Sandiganbayan First Division found the two guilty of malversation and graft.
On the other hand, we are now struggling from a pandemic. People are asking for help, and the soldiers in this battle that could fight for the citizens are health professionals. Even with the pandemic, corruption did not slip away. There are people that took advantage of the situation.
According to an article of CNN Philippines, the corruption became worse on the year 2019. It is because of the pandemic. An agency in the country, PhilHealth, is behind the scandal. A whistle blower Attorney Thorsson Keith told everything about PhilHealth officials who put 15 billion pesos in their own pockets. They made it through their schemes using Interim Reimbursement Mechanism (IRM) or the policy that will extend cash advances to hospitals whenever there is an emergency. Since the crisis in COVID-19, PhilHealth officials took advantage of it. The investigation is still on-going, and evidences are not yet solid. These two different scandals justified that corruption is persistent in the country, even in the country’s darkest days, it will find its way. The problem is, the lack of evidences because corrupt officials are getting rid of it. Also, bribery for people to shut their mouth happens too. In total, there are a lot of hindrances to a corruption-free country.
With the mentioned issues of corruption above, it means that Philippines is struggling from this big time. The officials are abusing their power for their own benefit. It’s a shame that people voted for these officials and trusted them. Corruption will still be present in the country if circumstances like lack of evidences, bribery, and ineffective anti-corruption agencies are still happening. There will always be corrupt agencies and officials, and the only way to get rid of them is to put them in jail. Putting them in jail will require solid evidences that will prove them guilty. An anti-corruption agency will also be a big help, yet bribery to people to shut their mouth is there to stop them, and makes them ineffective to handle the crisis. These are reasons why Philippines can’t be free from this scandal.
Therefore, the country Philippines will not be able to free itself to the claws of corruption. The corruption is there because there are corrupt officials, but there are factors that also contributes to this. The lack of evidences because they are already getting rid of it, and uses threats and money to buy people’s silence. The agencies are at fault too. They should be fighting for this but they seem to be weakened by money too. There should be a solution to this. It should start with voting better leaders. In terms of ineffectiveness of agencies, there should be clearing on this. Corruption is always there, but it could can be solved if people can stand the truth, speak the truth, and prove the truth.
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