2025 was truly a blessing for Catholic Christians because it was a Jubilee Year which comes every 25 years. While we witnessed the passing away of Pope Francis, we also welcomed the subsequent papal election of another religious priest, an Augustinian, Pope Leo XIV. Also distinctive was that the Jubilee Year was opened by Pope Francis and closed by Pope Leo XIV last week. The last time this happened was in the 1700s.
In contrast, 2025 was the year of ‘National Disruption’ as Filipinos discovered how they were deceived and robbed by corrupt officials in government entrusted to serve the country. The complicity among lawmakers, DPWH executives, and contractors to amass public funds in sheer amounts was unimaginable. Never have we seen this kind and magnitude of corruption. Nakakasuka or nakakasuklam was the common refrain of the common tao.
The testimonies and accounts made during the congressional hearings tell us many things. Numerous news and commentaries were already reported and written. But not much attention was given on how we view the act of diverting public funds for private gain. How we answer the question is an indication of what our priorities are.
Everyone is awaiting the trial and conviction of the culprits. Many are angry and uneasy. This sentiment is expected because people witnessed the loss of lives and properties caused by incomplete, poorly-built, and even non-existent flood-control infrastructure. But the greater harm is social and cultural because our cherished values of honesty, integrity, respect for life, truth, justice, and the promotion of common good seemed to have been ignored.
There are two things to look at: on one hand, the people, and on the other, the work process and environment. The latter influences and shapes the behavior and character of the people, how they think, relate, and act.
Office of the President
The National Budget in the form of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) is consolidated and prepared by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), and cleared by the President. It is more procedural than substantive because engineering soundness and outcome relevance are not checked as in the case of DPWH. The Budget is defended by the agency concerned at congressional hearings in the House and Senate. Changes and adjustments are made during the said hearings. Afterwards, the budget, as approved by Congress, is forwarded to the President for approval or disapproval, using his veto power.
House and Senate
The GAB is deliberated, and amendments are introduced through line-item insertions which may not be tied to governmental agencies or the national economic development plans. The Bicameral Conference Committee introduces last-minute changes either by deletions and/or insertions. Un-programmed appropriations form one such type of insertion. Payoffs are allegedly solicited for awards of projects. Sadly, there is minimal documentation for this whole process.
The DPWH
The obvious serious problem in the department is its practice of extreme decentralization where regional directors and district engineers exercise wide autonomy and discretion over project identification and proposal, cost estimates, procurement and selection of contractors, implementation and execution, and inspection and acceptance. In contrast is a weak or negligent national office oversight and control. At best therefore internal accountability is very mediocre where administrative cases move slowly and urgent decisions are absent. Officials implicated in anomalies are merely reassigned or retained pending investigation. In the meantime, projects are awarded to contractors owned by the families, relatives, and/or dummies of lawmakers.
Contractors
Certainly, there is great disparity between the gross receipts and/or sales declared in the audited financial statements and annual income tax returns of private contractors and the reported project awards by the DPWH. Notably too is the fact that companies are owned by the same families or their relatives, and/or their dummies; furthermore, these companies are awarded multiple contracts despite having minimal capital, no track record, and a handful of technical staff. Apparently, these winning contractors massively subcontract their work.
Is this corruption a banality of evil or radical evil?
In Eichmann in Jerusalem, A Report on the Banality of Evil, Hannah Arendt writes about Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi operative responsible for organizing the transportation of Jews and others to various concentration camps and ultimately their death. Arendt observes that he was an ordinary, bland bureaucrat who was neither perverted nor sadistic but terrifyingly normal. He acted without any motive other than diligently advance his career in the Nazi bureaucracy. He was not an amoral monster. He performed his deeds without evil intention, and so never realized that he was doing something wrong. In simple terms, he was not inherently evil but merely shallow and clueless.
Immanuel Kant holds the view that universal moral law does not entirely depend upon demonstrating the existence of God, but rather upon reason, though he believes that its source cannot be divorced from the concept of God but claims that morality inevitably leads to religion. Obedience to the moral law, of which Kant believes religion should be an example, appears to be an expectation that is neither universally nor willingly practiced. When we have subordinated moral law to self-love, meaning we prioritize self-interest (wealth, power, and popularity or prestige in today’s setting) over duty, we corrupt the root of our morality, making us capable of evil despite knowing the good. For Kant this is radical evil. Furthermore, he holds, it is not just weakness but a fundamental corruption of one’s inner goodness that makes us to choose evil, making us responsible for our actions.
Corruption in the country has shaped the dealings between people and public officers. And the cost and impact are becoming more prohibitive and destructive of values.
The various personalities allegedly involved have spoken about their involvement and participation. Not everything was mentioned and told. And oftentimes, what was not said is the most important. But whatever it is, public funds were undeniably diverted for private and personal gain.
The work process and environment provides a fertile ground for public officers to succumb to corruption. Pressures from high officialdom cannot be discounted. Personal ambition is definitely a factor because of prestige and power that goes with it. But ultimately, the fragility of human character breaks when self-interest dominates and prevails. Desire for wealth, power, and popularity becomes so irresistible and insatiable.
Whether this corruption is banality of evil or radical evil, it is still evil which must be confronted. And each of us has a shared responsibility to challenge it in our own and unique way. Being indifferent is not an option and should never be. We need not be afraid, however, because goodness is still a powerful weapon available.
René dG. Bañez is a former Commissioner of Internal Revenue and faculty of Ateneo Law School handling taxation.
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