A Generation of Corrupt

Corruption might be one of the most rampant activities here in our country and its already a fact that all of us are suffering because of it. If you try to ask one Filipino on who to blame, many would simply say its the politicians, the police and everyone who holds authority and power. But another question should be raised, are we really that guilt-free?

Last Monday, I attended a general assembly wherein the person who gave the supposedly inspiration message gave us short background and details about corruption in the simplest sense.

She started by narrating an incident where they happen to buy some construction materials in a local hardware and after securing the materials and paying it, the cashier asked them on what amount should be written in the official receipt. She also added the confidence of the cashier upon telling that as if its commonly done. From that concrete manifestation of corruption, she then concluded that corruption is so rampant and as of the moment, its no longer necessary to hide it.

She also added that the simplest act such as becoming late even for the fact that the time of arrival was agreed-upon was indeed a form of corruption especially when someone came there ahead of time and you arrived a couple of hours late. In that given instance, you already stole someone's precious time. The one who's punctual might have used his/her time for another productive thing, but instead he/she wasted it simply because your late.

While taking all of those in, I was moved into reflection and I started to recall all of those instances where I did in fact committed corruption. Some obvious circumstance would be keeping the change whenever the cashier gave me excess, or taking advantage of the resources of other people. Even cheating in the classroom is a form of corruption. Another would be borrowing someone's things and not returning it in due time, taking advantage of the so called "bugs", "glitch", "hack" in computers is also a form of corruption.

As you can see, wherever we turn to, we can indeed name such acts. And right now, I am pretty sure you can already count how many corrupt acts you did commit today or perhaps in the past week. With that, I believe you already know where to start the fight against corruption. Yes, you're right. It should start with you. For again, Integrity starts with I.

I just hope that this simple article would really open our eyes to a broader and simplest sense of corruption. and many many many thanks and credits to Ma'am Beth Arcena Director of the Arrupe office of social formation, Ateneo de Davao University for simply giving that message to all of us.