Corruption and Bribery
by: Yvan Chris Ellys S. Sepacio
Corruption is when a leader is abusing their superiority with money too much and is
leading to economical problems towards the people they are leading or looking up to them. This
usually happens when politics are involved since politicians are the ones in charge of running
places that we live in. If corruption is present there is instances where poverty would spike
increasingly, economic businesses degrade slowly and overall making a country get poorer. An
example is our own country when it was the Ferdinand Marcos regime the president was
extremely corrupt leading to our country being poor and us citizens are in no power to stop him
mainly because he has control over everything and us Filipinos needed a whole group to start
“EDSA People Power Revolution” to stop him from further corrupting our country.
Corruption and bribery hinder economic development, public services, and social
cohesion. This disrupts the normal function of markets leading to increase in transaction costs
or making products or services overall more expensive and makes people uninterested in
investments on businesses which makes economic growth difficult. Corruption also leads to
inefficient balance of resources to citizens and lowers the accessibility of healthcare, education
and infrastructure even degrading their quality to people in need. Since bribery has become a
barrier to receiving the basic needs of people this affects the people in lower class and leading
to resentment and social tension leading to possible conflict within the country. This lowers the
trust of people or the whole community since they cannot rely anymore on the government to
keep the economy safe and properly running since if it was present, it wouldn’t take a genius to
understand that the government would only do things for their own benefit and not have a care
for the citizens or people, they are taking responsibility for. Again, using the event of the
Ferdinand Marcos Regime this was a time where people have rallied to impeach our old
president and get him out of the role of president since it took a long time before people have
understood that he was corrupt and is not only hindering the development of the country but
even damaging it.
Now, how do we combat bribery and corruption in a country? Before we start a fight
against the government it is important to understand first what type of corruption is happening
to develop proper and smart responses against the word of the president or public officials. It is
not enough that we have the responses to debate with the government, we also need people
that support our answers and have plenty of them that agree with our claims that somehow, we
make a way with each other that create accessibility and connections towards our ideas to
know and formulate plans that will be used and identify priorities, problems, and solutions to
these. With the power of technology as well we can use these to have communication and
exchange ideas with other groups. Transparency makes sures that information of what the
government is doing is accessible and citizens are available to monitor decision-making
processes.
In conclusion corruption hinders the development of a country while benefitting the
people who are corrupt their selves making an ineffective system and social class to sustain an
economy and stay a developed country. It is important to combat corruption or bribery in a
country to maintain fairness towards everyone and not only to those who are in position in the
government or superior in terms of law and rules, as well as being bringing justice to a
developing country that is being currently damaged by people who are corrupt.
Sources:
Impact on community development and trust
https://cpdonline.co.uk/knowledge-base/safeguarding/global-impact-bribery-
corruption/#:~:text=It%20erodes%20trust%2C%20weakens%20democracy,is%20a
%20form%20of%20corruption.
Combating Corruption and Bribery (Key points):
https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/governance/here-are-10-ways-fight-corruption
https://thehagueacademy.com/news/deal-bribes-workplace/
Role of Transparency
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/governance/publication/enhancing-government-
effectiveness-and-transparency-the-fight-against-corruption
Role of Accountability
https://etico.iiep.unesco.org/sites/default/files/2017-09/unpan010193.pdf
Role of Public Participation
https://www.unodc.org/e4j/en/anti-corruption/module-10/key-issues/the-role-of-citizens-in-
fighting-corruption.html
