WHENEVER I read local news, I see that the main issue has always been government corruption. This has been the case all my life, and will likely remain the same long after I’m gone.
This contrasts with my own focus, such as tech, economic statecraft and geopolitics, which I believe has more existential importance than the more petty (but still potentially deadly effects) of corruption.
This is not say that corruption, private and public, is irrelevant. Indeed, corruption leads to incompetence, which in turn leads to failure with regards to larger matters. What matters is the lens by which we view these issues. They are viewed as primarily as moral wrongs, rather than as signs of practical problems that require practical solutions.
I think this is partly because of our Christian legacy, which views all deeds as either good or evil, and the liberal-democratic structure of our society, and the egalitarian assumptions inherent to it.
But we are heading to an increasingly non-liberal, non-democratic world, and the lens by which we approach and see pressing issues should be more ruthless, more goal-oriented, otherwise, we risk a worse fate than just graft and corruption.
Consider this example. If a certain large Asian neighbor sunk one of our ships and executed its crew on live feed, would you still care that someone high-up took bribes for a provincial flood control project?
The issue many countries face now is that a lot of things have become existential, more zero sum, and in this type of world, choices must become more ruthless.
In the past, during America’s unipolar moment, most countries could afford to address their domestic problems more liberally, more judiciously. That is no longer tenable, especially if a problem renders the country vulnerable to enemy powers.
So the next time Filipinos read about corruption or incompetence in government, ask what it would take to fix the problem once and for all, and how much Filipinos are willing to sacrifice to get it, because in a more anarchic world, half-measures are no longer enough./PN
