There is a clear correlation between graft and corruption and poverty. The poorer the nation the poorer are its structures for identifying wealth. I will cite one example that almost every wealthy Filipino can understand. Real Estate Taxes. What I am about to describe has to do with a study made in Egypt but applies to the Philippines just as well. The banks of the Nile are lined with high apartment building most of which are not adequately reflected in the public record. The grandfather of the current owner built a two-story dwelling and paid real estate taxes (amiliaramiento in the old Spanish linggo used in the Philippines). The father of the current owner bribed someone in government so that instead of recording a construction that brought that 2-story home into the 4-story apartment building that it was 25 years ago, then again into the 8-story apartment building it is today. That high-income generating 8-story apartment building, shows in the government records as being only a remodeled 2-story apartment building.
Most of the real value of that property is hidden in the underground economy where it has to pay no real taxes. The only payments are bribes made to public officials by wealthy private landowners. Both the one who bribes as well as the one who takes the bribe are guilty. The bribe is initiated by the wealthy landowner. That is the way it is with all graft and corruption. The initiators are always the wealthy elite who do not have to bribe. ALWAYS. The official who is bribed in many cases has also become wealthy enough that he no longer needs the bribe. But he takes it anyway and explains it away with the fact he has to share part of it with other lesser and poorer officials who need the money for their survival.
The one who most suffers in this process is the poor citizen because he is forced to live in a nation where his government does not have enough money to provide him and his family with the basic necessities of life. He is forced to live in a nation where the majority of the economy is underground and well hidden from the public record despite the fact that the 8-story apartment building is completely visible to all. What is hidden and invisible is the fact that it is valuated at a small fraction of its real worth and its owner pays the government a small fraction of what he should be paying in taxes.
This cannot be done in a developed country because the government itself is wealthy enough to have structures that communicate with each other. It is impossible anywhere in the US or Europe or Japan for a wealthy landowner to declare that his 8-story apartment building is only a 2-story edifice. This can only be done in poor nations that do not have the infrastructure that would make such falsification impossible. In effect all such poor nations have governments that are almost completely without any power.
Here is an all-important key to understanding how this happens. A powerless government is useful to the wealthy who own all such powerless governments wherever they may be. A powerful government is generally owned by the people who demand the government rein-in the power and wealth of the super-wealthy elite in order to provide the majority of the people a decent life.
Why is the Philippine government the way it is? See who owns and controls its every move. See if you can find even one laborer, one farmer, one jeepney driver, one maid in any position of authority and power. Just one. I am not asking you to name me ten. Name one.
Inacio (Lula) Da Silva… illiterate laborer turned labor-leader turned President and reformer can come only from others such as him. He could not have emerged from a Cojuangco, a Tuason, a Zobel, etc.
Danding
No comments:
Post a Comment