A sense of urgency

By Elfren Sicangco Cruz

"Leading change" is the ultimate test of a leader but human nature being what it is, transformational change is often resisted mightily by the people who are presently entrenched in power and those who do not believe there is any urgency.

Change management experts like John Kotter believe that even when leading change is absolutely essential, as in the case in the Philippines today, the process is also incredibly difficult.

Transformational change often begins well when there is a new head who is a good leader and, more important, who sees the need for a major change. This was the case when the Philippines was transformed from a totalitarian state, under Marcos, into a functioning democracy. This was also the time when crony capitalism was dismantled. The basic freedoms of speech and assembly were also restored.

The transformation begun well when Corazon Aquino became president of the Philippines. More important, she understood thecritical importance of restoring the democratic institutions. She resisted all efforts to restore totalitarianism when she courageously confronted and defeated several coup attempts. At the same time, she also had the visionary determination in also resisting pressures to become a dictator and or even run for another term.

Today, we have another Aquino -- PNoy -- who again wants to lead transformational change. But this time, the goal is not just political but a continuation of the social change that was started by Cory Aquino but was disrupted by the past president.

This government must address the problem of poverty that has remained the biggest challenge to this country throughout its history. But no matter how grave the problem of poverty, it is solvable. More than that, making the necessary changes to put an end to poverty is a matter of both a moral obligation and an economic necessity.

It is true that ending poverty requires an integrated set of solutions tothe interwoven economic, political, environmental and problems that challenge all the world’s poor societies. But in the Philippines, themost urgent task is to eliminate corruption as a systemic way of life that permeates all sectors of society including government, business, media, civil society and even religious groups.

The extreme difficulty in this task is that corruption is not limited to specific persons but is literally an accepted way of life in most sectorsof society. Corruption has become so systemic and so pervasive that even those who condemn corruption have a tendency to believe thatthere is nothing that can done to eliminate corruption and Philippine society must, therefore, resign itself to tolerating corruption at all levels of society.

Even highly educated people in the upper levels of business andgovernment cannot believe that there is really a serious and honest effort to eliminate corruption. Therefore, even the effort to convict a corrupt past president or "impeach" a chief justice who is an obstacle to cleaning the Judiciary is attacked as a political move. Of course theobjections are cloaked in such slogans as the "rule of law" or preserving the so-called independence of the Judiciary.

It is understandable why many of those entrenched in power andthose who know that they must be accountable for their past crimes will use a lot of legalistic gimmicks to avoid punishment. Those who are familiar with the Judiciary can attest to so many heart rending examples of how the rich, with their battery of high-powered lawyers, are able to inflict so much injustice on the poor because they cannot afford to pay similar lawyers.

But even those who defied the Marcos-era Supreme Court and joinedthe EDSA I people power, in defiance of the "rule of law," are invoking the same Marcosian arguments that martial law was legal because it was approved by the Supreme Court and, therefore, anyone who defied the ruling was a "criminal."

The lack of cooperation in this war on corruption may be partly due to a sense of complacency due to the absence of any sense of urgency.There are possible reasons for this complacency.

First, there does not seem to be any highly visible crisis. There is no threat of any coup or revolution. The economy is not in a recessionand there is no serious threat of terrorism or civil war.

Second, the prevailing public message seems to be a pattern ofsuccesses. Revenue collections are up, tourism has increased, stock market is bullish, GDP growth is increasing, credit ratings are moving to investment grade, malls are expanding and employment opportunities are increasing.

Third, decades of corruption as a way of life has made our levels ofexpectations very low. Petty corruption, such as bribing traffic officers or buying smuggled goods or salting dollars in foreign banks have become accepted and even defended by those who say they support PNoy’s drive to end corruption.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, is the increasing isolation of theelite from the daily lives of the Filipino masses. The rich are indeed becoming richer and there is evident consumption explosion amongthe upper classes. Unfortunately, this is the class that makes thedecisions that affects the daily lives of the average Filipino.

Among the upper classes we find that there is now an increasing feeling of complacency. More and more they would prefer to leave thetask of transforming Philippine society to the government.

This is the greatest challenge today of PNoy. It was the feeling of an impending crisis that galvanized the middle and upper classes to demonstrate, in defiance of all existing laws, in the streets of Makatiand Manila which culminated in EDSA I. It was again a sense ofanother crisis that mobilized the same classes to support thepresidential campaign of NoyNoy Aquino.

People need to be convinced that the war against poverty andcorruption is far from over. The work of changing Philippine society, so that every person has an opportunity to live a life of human dignity, will continue to require great cooperation, initiative and thewillingness to make sacrifices from the middle and upper classes ofour society.

(Dr. Elfren S. Cruz is a professor of Strategic Management at the MBA Program, Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business, De La Salle University. Please send comments or questions toelfrencruz@gmail.com)