Helping your friends and family aka corruption

Here's a delicate topic. It is very hard to explain corruption in likeable terms. In fact, if it were not for corruption in the system here, we would probably have reliable electricity 24/7. In fact, we wouldn't have so many potholes in the street, or so many problems in society at every level. The poverty would not be gone, but would be greatly reduced.

Anything I say will be inadequate, because I haven't peeked into the higher echelons. But I have seen how it functions on a lower level. I suspect the higher levels have a similar basis. Try to imagine yourself in this society where you have obligations culturally. You've been taught this your whole life. How would you handle it?

The DR is very much a relationship based society. You take care of your friends, and you take care of your family. You are loyal to them. No matter what. (Possible exception: men who seem to be in a contest for how many women they can get pregnant don't always take care of their offspring.) You may prefer honesty, but if loyalty demands it of you, you will be dishonest. You won't see yourself as dishonest, however, you will just see yourself as loyal. You have taken great risks to provide for your family, friends, and political party.

When you get into a position with any power, you are expected to use that power to the advantage of not only yourself, but your friends and family. Lets make up an example. The position of power may just be that you are in charge of books that the government distributes to the poorer schools for the poorer school children. Even though you are not poor at this point, you are going to make sure your children get some of those books, so that you don't have to spend the money. Next, your sister, who knows you have your new position as bookmaster, is going to ask you for some for her children, who likewise are not in need. Well how can you turn down your own sister? All of the relatives will follow. Friends and neighbors who don't qualify for asistance will also want some. You cannot say no, because you would be breaking the rule of loyalty; you have an obligation to help. And you enjoy helping them. It makes you more popular. You enjoy a God-like ability to bestow things on those individuals who humble themselves to ask you.

Some of the books will get to poor people right away. Your sister will tell her maid that she can give her the books she needs. The maid doesn't make much, but she receives thousands of pesos in school books as a benefit of her employment.

By the way, later you will justify yourself in actually selling some of those books, for the same reason: to take care of you and yours. It is a short hop from giving away the actual books to selling them and using or giving away the money, and it isn't hard for you to bridge that gap logically.

The chances are, if you have attained any position of importance, however slight, that you aren't poor, and neither are your friends and relatives. You may be middle class or above. Why is that? Well, first of all, you have to have an education, and lower classes don't generally achieve even a HS diploma, much less college. Then there is the fact that people who have these positions have that obligation to family and friends to help them get similar positions, if it is in their power. Birds of a feather flock together. Who are your friends? People of a similar income and education. So when they need an assistant bookmaster, it will probably go to your nephew. You probably got your own bookmaster position from a relative or friend as well. And if you are allowed to hire people, you may put a few relatives on the payroll. They don't necessarily have to do anything, even to show up. Here these are called "botellas"--bottles. They collect a regular salary for doing nothing.

Here's an example from yesterday's news. I'm cutting out the name of the person, because it isn't germane to this discussion. [The official being investigated]"had even included more than 40 members of his own family circle on the payroll, which is said to be 10 times larger than what would be needed to run the... department efficiently." I assure you that no one was really surprised.

When aid comes to the country, usually it is directed to some government agency. All the people in that agency take what they want/need, and then they pass it on to the next lower level. Each level does this, till it finally arrives at the last rung of the ladder, those who are actually responsible to go out to the public and distribute the aid. But by that time the amount that is left is greatly reduced.

On a lower level. Someone sends pencils to a school. The director (principal) of the school is going to distribute the pencils to the teachers, after taking some for herself, and her friends & relatives. The teacher is going to distribute them to the students, after she gets her cut. What is left for the students? It may be a lot or a litte. The teacher may say that she doesn't have enough left for all the students to have a pencil, and give the pencils to either her own favorite students, or the students who are most in need.

I should add that your circle of obligation to family & friends also extends to political buddies. Anyone in your party who has done you a good turn has your loyalty. You are expected to support and vote for that person. If you have helped someone in a significant way to get elected, he owes you. And he will be loyal to you and pay you, perhaps by making you a botella.

This kind of thing happens at every level of society, down to the poorest. So it always amazes me when the finger is pointed for corruption. The difference in the poor and the wealthy is that the wealthy have more opportunity than the poor. If a poor person was in the position, he would do the same thing: he would be loyal to his friends, family, and political party, and he would take care of his own needs.

Loyalty is a wonderful trait in any society. How could things have gone so wrong from something so wonderful? How can this be fixed? As usual, the only solution is in the Lord Jesus. What needs to happen isn't that loyalty be abolished, but that honesty be elevated so that it isn't subservient to loyalty. This is a Biblical teaching. Be loyal AND be honest.