Calamities, Corruption and Complicity: Critical Consciousness and Community

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,When first we practise to deceive!— Sir Walter Scott.1 The perennially worsening floods accompanying natural calamities have brought untold suffering and misery on millions of people, highlighting the role of uncontrolled corruption as the underlying cause. The images of students and workers wading in filthy floodwaters as strong currents rampage, mud and debris destroying produce and property, contrast starkly with photos and videos of crooked legislators and crony contractors, as well as their friends and families, comfortably and callously splurging their ill-gotten wealth on pleasures untold in places unknown. Indeed, “We are witnessing the greatest corruption scandal in our scandal-prone history.”2 The English word corruption comes from the Middle English corrupcioun, (of material things, especially dead bodies, “act of becoming putrid, dissolution, decay;” also of the soul, morals, etc., “spiritual contamination, depravity, wickedness,”) derived from the Latin corruptus, which means “to destroy, spoil,” figuratively “corrupt, seduce, bribe,” from the intensive prefix com - (meaning “with” or “together”) and rup, past participle of rumpere (meaning “to break”).3 Thus, the word’s etymology literally means “to break with” or “to break together.” One cannot be corrupt alone, for corruption entails complicity—”the state of being an accomplice, partnership in wrongdoing or an objectionable act,” from the Old French complice “accomplice, comrade, companion,” Late Latin complicem, accusative of complex “partner, confederate,” from the Latin complicare “to fold together,” from com “with, together” + plicare “to fold, to weave.”4 The scale of complicity is mind-boggling, involving multiple levels of engagement, in diverse branches of governance, and trillions of pesos. Accusations and counter-accusations, exposés and allegations, inquiries and investigations, evolve by the hour, with no one (senators, congressmen, cabinet secretaries, who else?) seemingly immune from involvement. And yet they (may) all go scot-free; or will they?