THE 2013 Survey of Enterprises on Corruption conducted by Social Weather Station tells us that the Bureau of Customs, the Land Transportation Office, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Department of Public Works & Highways, the Philippine National Police and the House of Representatives had “net sincerity ratings” in fighting corruption, ranging from “very bad” (minus 63) to “poor” (from minus 10 to minus 28).
The Office of the President rated an “excellent” (plus 77) while the Senate just managed to earn a “neutral” rating (minus 8).
One wonders why SWS didn’t bother to look into the “net sincerity” of the respondents in the survey, namely, the executives of 951 enterprises in Metro Manila and other parts of the country.
According to one news report, the executives admitted that “most or almost all companies in their respective sectors paid bribes to win government contracts.” That casts a cloud on the anti-corruption “sincerity” of the businessmen.
When the Lord asked Eve why she ate the forbidden fruit, she reasoned that the snake made her do it. In the same context, how many of the respondents in the SWS survey also played the snake?
This is not to say that the government offices so harshly rated by SWS need any persuasion (like Eve) to become corrupt or, more specifically, to accept bribes. But there can be no bribe without someone agreeing to give it, even if under duress.
In other words, if the business enterprises were “sincere in fighting corruption,” they would have stood by their lofty principles and refused to give a bribe.
We are aware of the “Integrity Initiative” undertaken by the Makati Business Club and the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines “that seeks to institutionalize integrity standards in the country’s different sectors….to help in diminishing, if not fully eradicating, the vicious cycle of corruption in the Philippines.”
According to a news item, the Integrity Initiative, launched in late 2009 was subsequently adopted by the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, the Management Association of the Philippines, the Bankers Association of the Philippines, the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines and the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
We assume that most, if not all, the companies that subscribed to the Initiative also became signatories of the “Integrity Pledge” and its strict Code of Conduct.
Among other things, the Pledge states, “As chief executives of established companies in the Philippines, we acknowledge our companies’ responsibility to lead by example in the fight against corruption and to operate our businesses ethically and with integrity.
“While the government has its own initiatives for reducing corruption, we realize that those initiatives cannot succeed without individual and collective commitment from businesses to level the playing field and to build integrity in the business environment.
“In view of the foregoing, we pledge the following: We will prohibit bribery in any form in all activities under our control and ensure that our charitable and political contributions, business gifts, and sponsorships are transparent and will not be for the purpose of attempting to influence the recipient, whether government or private, into an improper exercise of functions, duties, or judgment.”
In this regard, we are puzzled why the SWS respondents admitted that “most or almost all companies in their respective sectors paid bribes to win government contracts.”
Are we to understand that none of the 951 respondents is a member of the business organizations subscribing to the Integrity Initiative?
On the other hand, if some or several of the respondents are associated with these organizations, what sanctions, if any, will the Integrity Initiative proponents impose, now that SWS has bared the harsh reality of government bribery?
In one news report, Integrity Initiative co-vice chair, Hubert D’Aboville, “noted that the 1,500 signatories to the Integrity Pledge represented a mere 0.2 percent of the 700,000 companies registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission.” This begs the question: What percent of major business transactions with the government are accounted for by the 0.2 per cent?
The SWS report has been portrayed by media and by Malacañang in the classic half-empty, half-full manner, with the former describing the percentage of respondents (56%) as “a surge” from 43% in 2012, while the palace has depicted it as “the second lowest since 2000.”
The bad news is that media, government and businesses have been simply massaging a harsh reality in global business described in an article on Transparency International’s 1999 Bribe Payers Index (BPI):
“Transparency International of Germany released in October 1999 a brand new Bribe Payers Index (BPI). This ranks 19 leading exporting countries in terms of the degree to which their corporations are perceived to be paying bribes abroad. US has laws against bribing for decades and yet US corporations are widely known to use bribery to win contracts in developing countries. Central European countries, Japan and other export ‘tigers’ in Asia also have poor BPI scores. America should be ashamed of her reputation as a major bribe payer corrupting the third world. It is hypocritical to lecture poor countries against corruption while being exposed as the major supplier of bribes… the BPI shows that American, German, and Japanese corporations compete with each other in poor countries by giving large bribes.”
The good news (in a relative sense) is that, while 56% of Philippine businessmen said they “saw a lot of corruption” in government, in the SWS survey, the Philippines was perceived by only 10-14.9 percent of global business respondents as prone to bribery in the Transparency International’s 2013 report – rating much better than Romania and Thailand (15-19.9 percent), Colombia and Greece (20-29.9 percent), Indonesia and Mexico (30-39.9 percent), Morocco and South Africa (40-49.9 percent), Cambodia and India (50-74 percent) and Liberia and Sierra Leone (over 75 percent). Russia and China were not included in TI’s list for lack of respondents, but another report listed both countries at the top of the heap among countries notorious for demanding bribes.
And what about the United States? While TI ranked the US, along with the United Kingdom, in the 5-9.9% range, US media have included some of America’s biggest companies in the list of notorious bribers, led by Wal-Mart. One news items reads:
“Perhaps Wal-Mart (WMT) should try the ‘everyone does it’ defense. The giant retailer, which is accused of regularly bribing Mexican officials in order to quickly obtain permits to open stores, is far from the only US company that has been caught greasing the wheels of commerce in the past few years…Among the companies in the cross-hairs of the US government for committing bribery are Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), telecommunications company Qualcomm (QCOM), farm equipment maker Deere & Co. (DE), cosmetic company Avon (AVP), casino company Las Vegas Sands (LVS) and Koch Industries, the Texas conglomerate run by prominent Republican donors Charles and David Koch.”
Is the Philippine government really “sincere” in its announced effort to eradicate corruption? If it were, the notorious “autographs” that are required for doing business with the bureaucracy would be eliminated, cases of official corruption should be speedily adjudicated and Malacañang would certify the Freedom of Information Act as “urgent.” And that’s just for starters.
Presidential apologist Sonny Coloma skirts the FOI issue by claiming that “The President has always been circumspect in the use of this power.” Read that to mean: the FOI bill is not considered urgent enough.
Are Philippine businesses really “sincere” in their campaign to prevent bribery? If they were, why haven’t they gotten rid of the snakes?
The answer is obvious. The larger the corporation, the bigger the competitive advantage that bribery gives.
***
Email [email protected].
