Analysis: Fighting corruption in the twilight of Duterte

Duterte’s administration is now acting and fighting against graft and corruption. The
remaining year under his regime was said to be devoted in eradicating corruption and he sees that
the way to fight against this is through prosecuting any of the officials who are involved in this
exploitation. Punishments for corrupt acts include imprisonment up to ten years, permanent
removal from office and confiscation of property as reported by Republic Act No. 3019 Anti-
Graft and Corruption.

All these years and from the past decades, the grand corruption scandals have been
marked in Philippine history and besides, the abuse of power has been very transparent that is
why, as stated by Romero (2020), people do not seem to take it seriously and the thing is, they
are not too much expecting that Duterte’ regime will successfully end his term as he entered the
war on corruption. Despite the reported cases from high officials, why is it that corruption is still
active especially in government agencies? The reason is that even though recent administration
finds out lists of people involved in corruption and filed tons of cases or expelled highest
officials from their positions, the set-up has been practiced for a long time and even the smallest
agencies are continuously engaged in misconducts. Therefore, there are two sides that affect the
never-ending corruption, the small to large scale of corruption and the unhelpful ways and
ignorance of the administration.

Corruption does not stop because it actually practiced even from the smallest scale of
agencies. It all started because of bribery as stated by Lopez (2020) from CNN Philippines and
also, it was reported that 21 percent of firms operating in the country said they have been asked
to pay a bribe. This happens mostly to fortify documents including licenses and medical
certificates. These legal documents are obtained through illegal transactions and violating formal
rules which are commonly known as red taping. These happens repeatedly and as supported by
Romero (2020), mostly engaged in bribery are those corrupt people. One of these is offering
services as fixers for the processing of drivers’ license. This kind of arrangement inside small
agencies is the reason why corruption continuously occurs. Also, misconduct behavior has been
experienced by anyone, even employees who has right conducts are being engaged to corruption
by just signing papers, this is because of money and desires and also, they believed that they are
protected and that there is a low chance of political transparency.
 With this, large agencies became more complicated. Unskilled elected officials or low
credential politicians are conquering the huge scale of government agencies. Having
unaccredited and unqualified are being added to the problem as they are easily influenced by
misconducts. In the Philippines, Bureau of Immigration is known as the top leading corrupt
government department in the Philippines. As reported by Peralta (2020) From CNN Philippines,
about ninety percent of Bureau of Immigration personnel are involved in the so-called "pastillas"
scheme which allows paid special treatment to Chinese nationals entering the country. Also as
witnessed in Duterte’s administration, high government officials that has lack of accountability
are one of the causes why corruption does not come to an end. Those absolute pardons, reduced
sentences as well absolved officials despite the heavy cases are mainly done by the
administration. So, even all of these are unacceptable, the hand of current presidential
administration remains powerful. “And what actually happens is that the administration is
currently campaigning for anti-corruption but still granting and releasing pardons which also
seems to be very inconsistent with the rule of law”, (International Bar Association, 2020)

Lastly, as stated by Research Gate (2020), the government’s ignorance and insignificant
strategies are making big failures despite all the anti-corruption movements. Since the current
administration believed that the way to eradicate corruption is through prosecution, once again,
even if people pay with what they have done, the customs are still practiced. Lack of established
plans are ignored many times because of lack of anticipation towards the ethics in the workplace,
and the daily operations of agencies as the reason why corruption is still being involved.

Thus, this cannot be solved by just prosecuting corrupt officials because, the blame
should be put to what the systems continuously doing. As long as the administration has no
concrete and significant plans, small to large-scale of agencies continues to exploit, take bribes,
and falsify legal documents which sooner leads to a grand corruption.