BY:DONALD SEVILLA
A CULTURE OF CORRUPTION
How many times have we felt frustrated dealing with a government agency for even the least of things?
Dismayed and disillusioned to put it mildly, could best describe how we may feel.
Yet corruption is not just limited to an outright handover of pecuniary consideration to facilitate a transaction or favor.
While this involves an overt act of money changing hands, it could also be subtle and less obvious.
Corruption may involve applying a set of stringent requirements designed to force a client to negotiate to make things easier. The client then makes an offer, which the corrupt official gladly obliges.
” He initiated this, not me and all I did was help and gave him a favor. Anything that followed was a gratuitous act from a happy customer. “
This distorted mindset makes the corrupt feel comfortable and his conscience clean. But was such act borne out of a genuine desire to help?
In a system full of hypocrisy, the corrupt portray themselves as heroes who save us from the hassles of bureacratic red tape.
Yet corruption and hypocrisy go hand in hand. The corrupt appear numb and unaffected. They are insensitive to what people think and even flaunt their material possessions for everyone to see.
Isn’t this what’s happening to our elected officials who unashamedly post their designer bags, clothes, jewelry and luxurious lifestyles on social media while the rest of us go hungry?
Our ” honorable public servants” feel no empathy, proud of their “achievements”. We even admire and praise them. But should we ?
What has happened to our sense of values?