Corruption In The Philippine Military: What Else is New?

Today’s headlines reported a 'surprise' bombshell-a corruption expose within the Philippine Military.

This from the Inquirer, (bold emphasis mine)

A retired lieutenant colonel on Thursday made a surprise appearance at the Senate and disclosed how he and his ex-bosses allegedly amassed wealth, with a large portion of the loot taken from soldiers’ salaries.

Seated on a wheelchair following a stroke, George Rabusa dropped a bombshell: that Angelo Reyes, a former Armed Forces chief of staff, received a send-off gift (“pabaon”) of “not less than” P50 million when he retired in 2001.

Rabusa said he personally delivered the cash to the “White House,” Reyes’ then quarters at Camp Aguinaldo, that year. He said he was accompanied by the then military comptroller, Lt. Gen. Jacinto Ligot.

“We had to convert [the money] to dollars because it was very bulky,” Rabusa said during the Senate blue ribbon committee’s initial hearing on the plea bargain between government prosecutors and ex-military comptroller Carlos Garcia.

On top of the purported “pabaon,” Reyes, who later became defense secretary, allegedly received a monthly take of at least P5 million—or around P100 million in his 20 months as AFP chief of staff. Rabusa said he and Ligot made the monthly deliveries.

Rabusa said Reyes’ office also received another P5 million monthly, but added that the amount was spent for office needs and was not necessarily pocketed by Reyes.

Yawn.

So what else is new?

Almost everyone would chime in to passionately condemn on such ‘repugnant’ act. But this perspective has been largely premised on the moral aspects of human frailties.

While people see this as something to seethe at, I see this more of a humdrum, if not an amusement. That’s because the mainstream hardly ever discusses on what incentivizes public officials to resort to such ‘detestable’ action. The assumption has always been premised on virtuosity and personality, and hardly on the system which fosters this.

People rarely see that corruption is mainly a product of the political distribution of resources.

A society whose economic opportunities have been controlled by politics would end up having the same or repeated repercussions, thus a vicious cycle—which is why there is nothing new.

As Ludwig von Mises wrote,

``Public opinion is not mistaken if it scents corruption everywhere in the interventionist state. The corruptibility of the politicians, representatives, and officials is the very foundation that carries the system.”

And government officials as human beings are tempted by the same follies as anyone else, except that they advantageously operate with the power of legal coercion behind them.

And a bloated bureaucracy, regardless of which government agency, tends to fall into the same trap, as political favors, concessions and privileges are extended or exchanged within the bureaucracy or with select entities in the private sector, under the aegis of political mandate, that frequently leads to the same ‘perverted’ incentives.

Here is a simple (Occam Razor’s-law of parsimony) solution: starve the beast and corruption should fade naturally.