Just of late, it seems many foreigners condemn corruption ( as we should) yet seek to compound it by trying to circumnavigate the legal way of obtaining whatever we need instead of just going with the flow and live a more comfortable guiltless way of life, or is it just me that thinks this?
Sometimes Jack the "flow" just isn't there.. choosing between getting help to function (such as driving with a license vs without) then bolstering the economy might just be the solution... but you are free to follow your own conscience ...
As I do with a Clear conscience sometimes I feel people just do not make their own things happen properly Such is my way f life
hi jack well for me, condemng corruption is fine, every country has it but in the phils it is "pandemic". i would suggest that the idea of "corruption" and "illegal" should be distinguished from "inept" and "incompetent". we all all guests here, true? i feel our job is to learn to live in the culture without make waves or enemies. it is illegal for us to work on the political system here or to try to influence that. so how do you deal with convoluted and complex and culturally sensitive issues like getting a drivers license or a smoke test certification. is it wrong to hire a "gopher" to get those things done for you? for me it is not. in quezon city some many years back i was an interested bystander to a child custody suit. it took christmas gifts to about five different people in order to ge the case on the docket. not to get a favorable opinion, just so it could be heard by the court. so do you refuse to try to help the children? or do you bend and work with the philippne system in quezon city? i am sure none of those people are there any more and hopefully that problem does not exist anymore. are they still putting bullets in luggage at the manila airport? i don't know i am a realist. this is where i choose to live. the country defines the rules and i just try to stay out of trouble but to get stuff done that i need. i really do not even complain about it anymore. its the reality here
Yes and it will go on and on and on yet we will hear all the moans for ever but each our own and I know my way way of living does not give me sleepless nights
hahaha, well i agree completely. i retired as an RN in the states. my most common advice to patients was if they were sleeping well and waking up happy, then don't change a thing!!
Interesting takes here and as a typical fence sitter I suppose I could be guilty of taking advantage of ‘corruption’ - but only when it suits me. The asawa and rellies certainly have been the victims of it - being robbed of cash by Immigration Officers or de-planed, having procedures/initiatives blocked as they don’t support the right politico at the ballot box, having handouts refused to elderly rellies for the same, fingerprinted/photographed as part of Tophang just to make up the baranguay numbers...that was a good ‘un...”the death squad is here next week...” Sheesh. The list goes on. I suppose it comes with the territory here and it seems unlikely there will ever be a change in our lifetimes. It’s in the culture and it would seem to me that it’s down to a few factors; being poor and vulnerable, one’s face not fitting, overwhelmed and poorly governed systems, clan slights. Well probably a lot more factors! I shouldn’t overgeneralise or simplify. I was speaking to a couple of good officers of the law the other day. Coffee n natter on the terrace as they’d just dropped by to ask if I’d seen anything concerning a local ‘mystery’ (the disappearance of someone’s prize fighting cocks) when the subject turned to Child Protection. As someone who has spent most of their career directly liaising with CP agencies and obviously thinks this is a serious matter for any public servant I was taken aback at their earnest honesty, “that’s women’s work” (natch I think I just insulted their sense of macho. Ooops. Note, shut big gob C). Now my point being, if that is their attitude toward child trafficking/exploitation heaven help us all when it comes to this issue, corruption. Btw, 2 nicer Filipino cops you could not meet. Good guys pud.
hey mr cerne, enjoyed your post. would like to know more about "the death squad". you sound like a realist to me so i can identify with many of your coments. about the child protection issues, a site called"humanium" ranks 196 countries by their performance re childrens rights. the US comes in i think at 56 and the phils at 123. no idea of the credentials of the site. sad truth that in many countries children are just chattle to treat like you would cattle or pigs. encourage you to speak up more often. looks like you have a close and genuine connection with the phils culture. happy to have your views!!
Gonna try and keep the person at the centre of this as anonymous as possible. Said relly is a father to quite a young brood, a member of one of the Phils umpteen born again congregations - in my estimation the least likely bod to get involved in that kind of murk. And I speak as a shrink that consults to a few governments in a certain region about rehab policy. He’s clean. Period. As I understand it he took the customary ‘mystery brown envelope’ come election time but didn’t quite manage to vote ‘correctly’. This may have had the effect of putting noses out of joint in certain quarters. So he got named and shamed as a Tophang person of interest. Just on someone’s say-so. No evidence at all. Off you go sa Pulis station, photographed, fingerprinted and compelled to attend educational sessions. Foolishly I went along to plead how insane this all was and heard the “death squad is coming next week” straight from said ****** mouth. Me to relly: um, you better attend class, *********** next week. No. karun. He did. Don’t know about being a realist. The more I live here, the more of a fatalist I seem to become. I’m lucky, I’ve grown up in a culture where change, participation and influence are relatively fair. I can’t help reflect what it must be like to be a citizen of a place where those standards appear to be ‘lip service’ to a significant degree and you really know what it’s all about. Dispiriting I should think. In terms of children’s rights I’ve seen some d*mn good practice here concerning Child Protection. Hats off to those officers concerned. However, I think we need to accommodate the overwhelming scale of the problem ranging from poor parenting to predators on the net before castigating the PNP or welfare services. Certainly there is room for improvement; funding, operational practices, culture and of course the inept, corrupt and the shouldn’t be fit to wear the uniform needs to be addressed. But hey, this is a developing country with one of the highest indices of poverty and the government just doesn’t have the resources. Hell, literally for anything, particularly at the moment. Again, if I was a ‘decent’ public servant here I think I could end up becoming quite depressed. It’s hard on those that do their best here. Cheers, C.
