Embassy of the United States in Manila

Corruption and Overpopulation:
Crucial Problems for the next Administration to Resolve

Remarks by
Joseph A. Mussomeli
Chargé d’Affaires
Embassy of the United States of America
June 17, 2004

Governor Rufino, members of the Rotary Clubs of Makati West, Makati South and Forbes Park, friends and family, ladies and gentlemen.

It is a pleasure to be here – I always appreciate any opportunity to escape from the Embassy, and this is particularly true where, as today, I can do so in such pleasant company.

I am also honored to have been invited to speak to an organization that does so much, such as your program to feed malnourished children, to improve the well-being of your fellow Filipinos, and I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate you for your selfless contributions.

I thought I’d begin by taking a few minutes and talk about two things I am not going to talk about. The first thing I am not going to talk about is the May 10 election. The Embassy has been besieged with questions about whether we think the election was “free and fair.” Our reply is simply that the Philippines is a maturing democracy, with a large number of institutions that are far better positioned than the US government to evaluate the May 10 elections. We have also been asked about the ongoing delays in Congress in canvassing the votes. Again, we do not believe ourselves the best qualified to pass judgment on what is going on in the Congress.

But we are also asked a third question: “What do you think the Filipino people think about what is going on in Congress?” This is a question we are oddly enough eminently qualified to answer because gauging the attitudes and views of people is what embassies throughout the world do everyday. We report back to our capitals all the time our analysis of what people are thinking. So to this question we have a very clear response: our sense is that the vast majority of Filipinos want to move on. They want to move on, and get on, with life and with the urgent business of living. Our strong sense is that most Filipinos find the delays, the accusations and counter-accusation tedious and tiresome, and they just want it to go away.

And one more point on this particular matter. The Philippines is a democracy and so it’s incumbent upon me to remind everyone that democracies have institutional processes. Every individual and every group is obliged to live and operate within those processes. Any effort to operate outside those parameters would have a serious negative impact: the international business community would view it as destabilizing and the community of nations would view it as a serious concern. In our view, this is not a time for precipitous action; this is a time for all Filipino leaders to think—and act—in the best interests of the Filipino people.

That was a lot of talk about something I’m not going to talk about.

The second thing I am not talking about is bilateral relations. I’m not going to dwell on this issue because, frankly, our relations are so strong and so enduring that I see no danger or threat to them. Regardless of who is proclaimed President on June 30th, regardless who wins the American presidential vote in November, our bilateral relationship is on solid ground and will continue to prosper. This is not to take anything away from your President. President Arroyo has done a great deal to revitalize that relationship, and for this she deserves great praise. It is only to say that our bonds of friendship, shared history, and mutual ideals are so strong that we are confident that the relations will continue to mature in the years ahead regardless of who is at the helm of either country and regardless of what temporary crises and disagreements we might have.

Soon I will return to my regular responsibilities as DCM, so I thought I would use this forum to talk on issues that we usually avoid, issues that my close, personal Filipino friends talk about privately all the time that are most crucial for the next Administration to resolve. According to them, two problems transcend and overshadow all other problems: they are corruption and over-population.

I raise these two issues with a good deal of trepidation because they are both sensitive matters, and because, frankly, all countries, especially America, have serious problems. There is corruption in every country including America, and reasonable people frankly disagree on how much there is here in the Philippines. But what we do know is that Transparency International and other groups have ranked the Philippines in the bottom third of all the world.

But this isn’t news to any of us. There is certainly a lot of talk about this issue today, but the more I think about it, and I have been thinking about it for 20 years, the more I wonder if people really know what the term means. It is one of those hazy concepts that every one is against and no one is guilty of. The term “corruption” reminds me of this old joke, I think by George Bernard Shaw, about conjugating the verb “to be firm”: I am firm. You are stubborn. They are pigheaded fools.

That is pretty much how we all think of corruption. It is never a word we use in the first person. It is rarely thought of in the second person. Instead, it is always used in the third person plural. Not “I am corrupt.” Nor, “My friends are corrupt.” And it is not usually, “You are corrupt.” But always: “They are corrupt.” But we just never can figure out who “they” are….

I suspect few people really know they are corrupt. And I think that is because we all think of it the wrong way. We think corruption is the byproduct of vices. But it doesn’t seem to be that way. It certainly is not from greed. Does anyone really believe that the average Filipino is greedier than the average American? Having lived among both people for a long time, I would more easily entrust my riches to most Filipinos I know than most Americans. Is it about dishonesty? Again, I do not think that Filipinos are less dishonest than Americans. Indeed, I have always been taken aback at the instinctive honesty of most Filipinos I meet. So if it isn’t these vices that are the root cause of corruption, what is?

This will sound ridiculous, but I think it just the opposite. It is not the vices, but the virtues, of the Filipino people that allow corruption to flourish: Loyalty, Tolerance, Patience.

St. Paul – I can’t remember which of his epistles, maybe to the Corinthians – once said “our greatest weakness is also our greatest strength.” I think the opposite is probably also true: Our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. Nothing strengthens and makes the Philippines so wonderful, so dynamic and so resilient a country as its tight-knit families, and the loyalty they engender. And I mean family in the broadest sense: not just blood relatives, but friends, classmates, comrades-in-arms, business partners. If there is too little loyalty and devotion, then you risk what we have in the U.S.: social alienation. If you have too much loyalty to the State, then you have the opposite extreme: Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. But if you have too much personal loyalty that transcends loyalty to society, then a society risks corruption.

The new administration should as its highest priority seek to instill a sense of loyalty to the law and to society above all else. By example and by dictate, the government must advocate for a loyalty to law and society that even transcends the strong bonds of family and friendship that now pervade the country. A Roman philosopher and statesman, Cicero once said: “We are slaves to the law in order that we may be free.”

Filipino society is the most welcoming, most accepting culture I know of. But this same tolerance, combined with an almost other-worldly patience that things someday will get better, makes things unintentionally go as they always go and those who do harm to society never are punished.

Before this tour, my wife and I were last in the Philippines 18 years ago, during the last years of the Marcos dictatorship and the first few months of Cory Aquino’s administration. Those were exciting times. They reminded me of Wordsworth’s description of the French Revolution: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven.” We believed at that time that the Philippines was on the threshold of great things. And certainly in many ways the Philippines has come a long way from where it was 18 years ago: the malls, the theatres, the new skyscrapers – but in other ways it remains on that threshold. Still waiting for the greatness that we know is its destiny.

Instead in the last two decades many of your neighbors have raced past in terms of economic development. In 1952, the per capita income of the Philippines was twice that of Thailand. In 1975, they were even. Today, Thailand has twice the per capita income.

How can this be? I have served in half a dozen countries; I have lived or traveled through dozens of other countries and never have I met a people more intelligent, more talented, energetic, and dedicated than Filipinos. And when you combine all these talents with the natural resources of the country and the longstanding educational system, there are not many reasons to explain why the rest of Southeast Asia is pulling ahead.

But corruption siphons away funds for infrastructure and education, and it scares away foreign direct investment (FDI). From 2001 to 2003, annual inflows to the Philippines were only half those of Vietnam, a country we were at war with just 30 years ago. It also erodes the faith of the public in government, and now we have a silent tax revolt and the Philippines has the lowest tax revenue-to-GDP in all of ASEAN.

What is required, to put it simply, is that the leaders must make it certain that, regardless of who you are, regardless of who you know, you will pay if you are corrupt. Recent research suggests that by making a few high-profile arrests and prosecutions, a society can go from rampant corruption to rampant honesty quite quickly. If you would ask anybody 20 years ago about Thailand or Hong Kong, they would have said it was hopeless. But once some prosecutions were made, some people put in jail, things changed dramatically almost overnight.

This is not to say the U.S. is perfect. Last year alone, the U.S. Department of Justice obtained more than 800 convictions for government officials. The money involved ranged from just a few hundred dollars to enormous amounts. And there are many dedicated public officials here. President Arroyo has said that it is a major objective of her Administration to stamp out corruption. The Ombudsman is doing his best to attain convictions and is determined to root it out. The Supreme Court, also, has embarked on a 5-year reform plan, and since 1998, has disciplined over 600 court personnel. So, there is progress and there is hope.

But unfortunately, these dedicated and courageous Filipinos are fighting an uphill battle. They lack the necessary resources and funds from the government. And the wheels of justice, when they do turn, turn too slowly.

In short, there is a need for greater resources and greater political will at all levels to make enduring progress.

Of course, the U.S. tries to assists in this fight. USAID has a 3-year $8 million Rule of Law activity program. In addition, the U.S. has created a new assistance program for developing countries called the Millennium Challenge Account. Funds in this account will be available to developing countries, but the criteria will set forth require good governance, including efforts to fight corruption.

We realize these are small things contributions. In the end, it will be up to the Filipino people. And we see every day the courage of ordinary Filipinos and their true dedication to their country. Thousands of them courageously fight in your Armed Forces. We know millions of them sacrifice to go overseas to work in harsh, inhospitable lands, to toil for years to make better lives for their families. The same courage in the war on corruption will allow the Philippines to attain its destiny as leading Southeast Asia.

But this is only half of the equation; the other half is population and this is even more sensitive. Every year about 1.7 million new citizens are born. That means four new babies every minute. While I’ve been talking about 40 new Filipinos have been born. Already this is the 12th most populous country in the world. One survey says that almost half the population is living on less than $2 a day. But the most important survey is the one about the wishes of the Filipino people. In those surveys we find that most Filipinos want fewer children than they have.

I think we all agree that it is immoral when governments coerce citizens into having fewer children than they want. But perhaps the opposite is also true: it is unfair when citizens do not have the opportunity and the means to limit the number of children they want.

There must always be a profound respect for life. “A reverence for life,” as Albert Schweitzer once put it. But a reverence for life means more than just allowing for the unrestrained reproducing of life. Some part of this reverence for life should be to ensure that the already living are taken care of.

There are a large number of women, about a quarter of your population, who are seeking to limit the size of their families but lack the means to do so.

So, I’ll end with a quote by Galileo, one of my favorite theologians and scientists: “I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our reason and our intelligence wishes us to abandon the use of our reason or intelligence” in living our lives.

Maybe Ill add a small anecdote. I was reminded of it because of the singing of the national anthem today. When I was here in 1986, in February ’86, I met with one of my Filipino friends for coffee. And he was angry and I asked him why he was angry, and he explained that one of his friends was leaving for America. And I said, “so what’s wrong with that?” And he just got angrier and said he told his friend that he should stay here to fight for democracy. And the friend said to my friend, “oh don’t be so silly, I’ll be home soon once things quiet down in March or April. Right now I want to go to the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave.’” And so my friend angrily replied, “well you may be going to the ‘land of the free’ but you are leaving the ‘home of the brave’.”

Thank you.


Corruption and Overpopulation: Crucial Problems for the next Administration to Resolve Remarks by Joseph A. Mussomeli Chargé d’Affaires Embassy of the United States of America June 17, 2004 Governor Rufino, members of the Rotary Clubs of Makati West, Makati South and Forbes Park, friends and family, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to be here – I always appreciate any opportunity to escape from the Embassy, and this is particularly true where, as today, I can do so in such pleasant company. I am also honored to have been invited to speak to an organization that does so much, such as your program to feed malnourished children, to improve the well-being of your fellow Filipinos, and I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate you for your selfless contributions. I thought I’d begin by taking a few minutes and talk about two things I am not going to talk about. The first thing I am not going to talk about is the May 10 election. The Embassy has been besieged with questions about whether we think the election was “free and fair.” Our reply is simply that the Philippines is a maturing democracy, with a large number of institutions that are far better positioned than the US government to evaluate the May 10 elections. We have also been asked about the ongoing delays in Congress in canvassing the votes. Again, we do not believe ourselves the best qualified to pass judgment on what is going on in the Congress. But we are also asked a third question: “What do you think the Filipino people think about what is going on in Congress?” This is a question we are oddly enough eminently qualified to answer because gauging the attitudes and views of people is what embassies throughout the world do everyday. We report back to our capitals all the time our analysis of what people are thinking. So to this question we have a very clear response: our sense is that the vast majority of Filipinos want to move on. They want to move on, and get on, with life and with the urgent business of living. Our strong sense is that most Filipinos find the delays, the accusations and counter-accusation tedious and tiresome, and they just want it to go away. And one more point on this particular matter. The Philippines is a democracy and so it’s incumbent upon me to remind everyone that democracies have institutional processes. Every individual and every group is obliged to live and operate within those processes. Any effort to operate outside those parameters would have a serious negative impact: the international business community would view it as destabilizing and the community of nations would view it as a serious concern. In our view, this is not a time for precipitous action; this is a time for all Filipino leaders to think—and act—in the best interests of the Filipino people. That was a lot of talk about something I’m not going to talk about. The second thing I am not talking about is bilateral relations. I’m not going to dwell on this issue because, frankly, our relations are so strong and so enduring that I see no danger or threat to them. Regardless of who is proclaimed President on June 30th, regardless who wins the American presidential vote in November, our bilateral relationship is on solid ground and will continue to prosper. This is not to take anything away from your President. President Arroyo has done a great deal to revitalize that relationship, and for this she deserves great praise. It is only to say that our bonds of friendship, shared history, and mutual ideals are so strong that we are confident that the relations will continue to mature in the years ahead regardless of who is at the helm of either country and regardless of what temporary crises and disagreements we might have. Soon I will return to my regular responsibilities as DCM, so I thought I would use this forum to talk on issues that we usually avoid, issues that my close, personal Filipino friends talk about privately all the time that are most crucial for the next Administration to resolve. According to them, two problems transcend and overshadow all other problems: they are corruption and over-population. I raise these two issues with a good deal of trepidation because they are both sensitive matters, and because, frankly, all countries, especially America, have serious problems. There is corruption in every country including America, and reasonable people frankly disagree on how much there is here in the Philippines. But what we do know is that Transparency International and other groups have ranked the Philippines in the bottom third of all the world. But this isn’t news to any of us. There is certainly a lot of talk about this issue today, but the more I think about it, and I have been thinking about it for 20 years, the more I wonder if people really know what the term means. It is one of those hazy concepts that every one is against and no one is guilty of. The term “corruption” reminds me of this old joke, I think by George Bernard Shaw, about conjugating the verb “to be firm”: I am firm. You are stubborn. They are pigheaded fools. That is pretty much how we all think of corruption. It is never a word we use in the first person. It is rarely thought of in the second person. Instead, it is always used in the third person plural. Not “I am corrupt.” Nor, “My friends are corrupt.” And it is not usually, “You are corrupt.” But always: “They are corrupt.” But we just never can figure out who “they” are…. I suspect few people really know they are corrupt. And I think that is because we all think of it the wrong way. We think corruption is the byproduct of vices. But it doesn’t seem to be that way. It certainly is not from greed. Does anyone really believe that the average Filipino is greedier than the average American? Having lived among both people for a long time, I would more easily entrust my riches to most Filipinos I know than most Americans. Is it about dishonesty? Again, I do not think that Filipinos are less dishonest than Americans. Indeed, I have always been taken aback at the instinctive honesty of most Filipinos I meet. So if it isn’t these vices that are the root cause of corruption, what is? This will sound ridiculous, but I think it just the opposite. It is not the vices, but the virtues, of the Filipino people that allow corruption to flourish: Loyalty, Tolerance, Patience. St. Paul – I can’t remember which of his epistles, maybe to the Corinthians – once said “our greatest weakness is also our greatest strength.” I think the opposite is probably also true: Our greatest strengths are also our greatest weaknesses. Nothing strengthens and makes the Philippines so wonderful, so dynamic and so resilient a country as its tight-knit families, and the loyalty they engender. And I mean family in the broadest sense: not just blood relatives, but friends, classmates, comrades-in-arms, business partners. If there is too little loyalty and devotion, then you risk what we have in the U.S.: social alienation. If you have too much loyalty to the State, then you have the opposite extreme: Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. But if you have too much personal loyalty that transcends loyalty to society, then a society risks corruption. The new administration should as its highest priority seek to instill a sense of loyalty to the law and to society above all else. By example and by dictate, the government must advocate for a loyalty to law and society that even transcends the strong bonds of family and friendship that now pervade the country. A Roman philosopher and statesman, Cicero once said: “We are slaves to the law in order that we may be free.” Filipino society is the most welcoming, most accepting culture I know of. But this same tolerance, combined with an almost other-worldly patience that things someday will get better, makes things unintentionally go as they always go and those who do harm to society never are punished. Before this tour, my wife and I were last in the Philippines 18 years ago, during the last years of the Marcos dictatorship and the first few months of Cory Aquino’s administration. Those were exciting times. They reminded me of Wordsworth’s description of the French Revolution: “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven.” We believed at that time that the Philippines was on the threshold of great things. And certainly in many ways the Philippines has come a long way from where it was 18 years ago: the malls, the theatres, the new skyscrapers – but in other ways it remains on that threshold. Still waiting for the greatness that we know is its destiny. Instead in the last two decades many of your neighbors have raced past in terms of economic development. In 1952, the per capita income of the Philippines was twice that of Thailand. In 1975, they were even. Today, Thailand has twice the per capita income. How can this be? I have served in half a dozen countries; I have lived or traveled through dozens of other countries and never have I met a people more intelligent, more talented, energetic, and dedicated than Filipinos. And when you combine all these talents with the natural resources of the country and the longstanding educational system, there are not many reasons to explain why the rest of Southeast Asia is pulling ahead. But corruption siphons away funds for infrastructure and education, and it scares away foreign direct investment (FDI). From 2001 to 2003, annual inflows to the Philippines were only half those of Vietnam, a country we were at war with just 30 years ago. It also erodes the faith of the public in government, and now we have a silent tax revolt and the Philippines has the lowest tax revenue-to-GDP in all of ASEAN. What is required, to put it simply, is that the leaders must make it certain that, regardless of who you are, regardless of who you know, you will pay if you are corrupt. Recent research suggests that by making a few high-profile arrests and prosecutions, a society can go from rampant corruption to rampant honesty quite quickly. If you would ask anybody 20 years ago about Thailand or Hong Kong, they would have said it was hopeless. But once some prosecutions were made, some people put in jail, things changed dramatically almost overnight. This is not to say the U.S. is perfect. Last year alone, the U.S. Department of Justice obtained more than 800 convictions for government officials. The money involved ranged from just a few hundred dollars to enormous amounts. And there are many dedicated public officials here. President Arroyo has said that it is a major objective of her Administration to stamp out corruption. The Ombudsman is doing his best to attain convictions and is determined to root it out. The Supreme Court, also, has embarked on a 5-year reform plan, and since 1998, has disciplined over 600 court personnel. So, there is progress and there is hope. But unfortunately, these dedicated and courageous Filipinos are fighting an uphill battle. They lack the necessary resources and funds from the government. And the wheels of justice, when they do turn, turn too slowly. In short, there is a need for greater resources and greater political will at all levels to make enduring progress. Of course, the U.S. tries to assists in this fight. USAID has a 3-year $8 million Rule of Law activity program. In addition, the U.S. has created a new assistance program for developing countries called the Millennium Challenge Account. Funds in this account will be available to developing countries, but the criteria will set forth require good governance, including efforts to fight corruption. We realize these are small things contributions. In the end, it will be up to the Filipino people. And we see every day the courage of ordinary Filipinos and their true dedication to their country. Thousands of them courageously fight in your Armed Forces. We know millions of them sacrifice to go overseas to work in harsh, inhospitable lands, to toil for years to make better lives for their families. The same courage in the war on corruption will allow the Philippines to attain its destiny as leading Southeast Asia. But this is only half of the equation; the other half is population and this is even more sensitive. Every year about 1.7 million new citizens are born. That means four new babies every minute. While I’ve been talking about 40 new Filipinos have been born. Already this is the 12th most populous country in the world. One survey says that almost half the population is living on less than $2 a day. But the most important survey is the one about the wishes of the Filipino people. In those surveys we find that most Filipinos want fewer children than they have. I think we all agree that it is immoral when governments coerce citizens into having fewer children than they want. But perhaps the opposite is also true: it is unfair when citizens do not have the opportunity and the means to limit the number of children they want. There must always be a profound respect for life. “A reverence for life,” as Albert Schweitzer once put it. But a reverence for life means more than just allowing for the unrestrained reproducing of life. Some part of this reverence for life should be to ensure that the already living are taken care of. There are a large number of women, about a quarter of your population, who are seeking to limit the size of their families but lack the means to do so. So, I’ll end with a quote by Galileo, one of my favorite theologians and scientists: “I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our reason and our intelligence wishes us to abandon the use of our reason or intelligence” in living our lives. Maybe Ill add a small anecdote. I was reminded of it because of the singing of the national anthem today. When I was here in 1986, in February ’86, I met with one of my Filipino friends for coffee. And he was angry and I asked him why he was angry, and he explained that one of his friends was leaving for America. And I said, “so what’s wrong with that?” And he just got angrier and said he told his friend that he should stay here to fight for democracy. And the friend said to my friend, “oh don’t be so silly, I’ll be home soon once things quiet down in March or April. Right now I want to go to the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave.’” And so my friend angrily replied, “well you may be going to the ‘land of the free’ but you are leaving the ‘home of the brave’.” Thank you. ###
	Last Update :: 01/05/2007
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