Can we defeat corruption? (3)
Rome/Vatican—”Don’t be afraid to get involved in politics,” a high-level official at the Vatican advised us with a mixture of refreshing candor and moral urgency. “If you want to make a difference in the world, [getting active in the political world] is highly essential,” he added, emphasizing the indispensability of moral courage. When I asked about the Vatican’s role in the world, and whether “soft power” matters in an era scarred by brazen machtpolitik, he underscored the centrality of “principled diplomacy”—and, crucially, maximizing the Holy See’s “unique and privileged position” as a “fair broker.”
While roaming the “eternal city,” and exchanging views with fellow young leaders from the Italian Parliament to Silicon Valley, I wondered about the future of democratic politics. Being surrounded by gorgeous architecture next to the Quirinal Palace in downtown Rome certainly helped to fire up my mind.
The bulk of my intellectual engagements took place in the Centro Congressi Palazzo Rospigliosi—a picturesque site filled with Roman statues, ornate interiors, subtropical gardens, and majestic works of art. A day earlier, I had visited the Gramsci Foundation Onlus, whose staff kindly shared with me a good number of memorabilia and complimentary books. Shortly after, I proceeded to the English Cemetery, which hosts Britain’s immortal poets, such as John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley, as well as prominent local leaders, such as former President Giorgio Napolitano, and, of course, Antonio Gramsci.
My grieving heart clearly needed the intellectual retreat and those serene moments of prayer across iconic locations in Rome. As I calmed my restless soul, I began to appreciate how the “eternal city” itself is a testament to human grit: imagine the long chain of sacrifices and ingenuity that allowed Italy’s beating heart to persist in spite of centuries of anarchy and violence on the continent. From its very inception, the Roman Republic was beset by corruption and greed, yet both its ideals and its architectural wonders survived into our era.
The Philippine political system, in many ways, eerily resembles ancient Rome’s. Think of ambitious senators with great oratorical skills eying the highest office; the rise of demagogues and occasional dictators, who claimed special powers in the face of crises; the concentration of resources in the hands of the patrician class, which both manipulated the masses and constrained tyrannical tendencies; and the uneasy coexistence of egalitarian principles of citizenship and various forms of slavery. Not to mention, the centrality of Latin as a language of power and spirituality. And this is precisely why Roman history always felt so familiar to me.
Rome’s history, however, is also a warning: Despite all its imperial grandeur, it repeatedly collapsed throughout different eras mainly due to the decadence of its ruling elite. I’m afraid the Philippine Republic could face a similar fate amid today’s unprecedented levels of corruption. True, many factors, including misguided economic policies, have contributed to our current crises. But corruption represents a “triple evil”: it drains our preciously finite public resources; distracts our policymakers from their actual duties; and divides our nation along patronage lines at the expense of nation-building.
As the twin challenges of climate change and artificial intelligence intensify, developing countries like ours don’t have the luxury of mass corruption or self-flagellating passivity. We need to get actively involved in saving our republic. The lives of more than a hundred million Filipinos are at stake. Fortunately, there are practicable policy interventions that could help us both mitigate corruption and strengthen the republican foundations of our democracy.
Dear reader, in our next column, I will provide a comprehensive anticorruption reform package (a product of my recent research at Oxford University), which addresses both the root causes and symptoms of corruption in the Philippines. On the one hand, there are more short-to-medium-term policy interventions that could be adopted by the incumbent administration, which has made fighting corruption a major legacy issue. Then, there are more long-term reforms, which could serve as the main thrust of policy debates ahead of the 2028 presidential elections—and, hopefully, be institutionalized under the succeeding administration. Some reforms focus on monitoring and punitive measures, while others seek to change the calculus of political actors toward good governance. Ultimately, however, we need to address the underlying structural contributors to large-scale corruption in the Philippines.
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richard.heydarian@inquirer.net
