If we can obey laws abroad, why can't we be good in our country?

Pinoy overseas anomaly (POA) refers to the observation that when seemingly undisciplined, law-breaking Filipinos go abroad, they can actually behave well. They use pedestrian lanes, drive carefully and those who work abroad actually pay their taxes. I discussed this around two years ago in (Mis)Leading by Example.

I did not have enough time to elaborate the issue further, so now I would like to continue that thread, especially since it's been taken up again in a public service ad featuring Johnny Delgado. In this ad, Delgado monologues about POA. I praise the producers of the ad for provoking discussion. What's missing though is that Delgado's ruminations merely poses the question but does not really present any concrete alternative action. Filipinos are good citizens when they go abroad -- so what?

Asking "So what?" is the key. Why exactly do we exhibit two different, opposing behaviors in different contexts? I recall Fr. Bulatao's theory of split-level Christianity: we are only good Catholics on Sunday, and bad Christians the rest of the week. So what?

One theory I've been entertaining is that we've been deprived for so long that we want to jump on every opportunity to party (after all, we spend 300+ years under Spanish oppression, around 100 years under Americans and 20+ years of Martial Law dictatorship). No wonder we're acting like reppressed fun-loving teens who are suddenly without parents or guardians.

Equally important, we need to examine our country's leadership. By this I broadly cover all sorts of leaders: political, industrial, economic, etc etc -- even celebrities. These are the people we are supposed to look up to, the role models of society. What are they doing? Politicians go around with an army of bodyguards. They have rude police escorts who help them weave through traffic faster than ambulances, special seats in airlines and theaters, and other special privileges. Our screen celebrities get special treatment everywhere and they can break the law but they are always pardoned. No wonder many of our youth want to be in the movies or TV.

Another important aspect that I have failed to discuss more thoroughly: the threat of punishment in our country is virtually nil. Our law enforcement is so bad that there is really no threat of punishment against criminals big and small. Politicians and businessmen who steal largely go unpunished (remember the BW scandal and Erap's corruption case?).

I'm also ranting against bus, jeepney, tricycle and taxi drivers who disobey traffic rules but never get punished because, after all, the traffic enforcers can't really milk them for money. When I was robbed of my mobile phone two years ago, I did not even bother reporting to the police. Why? The last time we reported a theft, the cops themselves told us they hardly had resources to track down the criminals (even after we gave them the license plate number of the car the thieves used).

In a recent meeting with a client, they admitted they had no phone service because their phone lines were stolen (they live near a large community of illegal settlers) and this was the fifth time it's happened. A classmate of mine who works for the Coastal Road administration said their highway are lights always unavailable because the electric cables are always stolen. Often, the highway police have caught thieves who live among illegal settlers along the highway.

Crime will never be truly resolved unless these people go unpunished. And while the rich and poor go unpunished and get more brazen, it's the middle class who suffer and lose hope. Case in point: I operate a small business that is struggling to grow. Our management has made a commitment to give back to the community and this includes paying our taxes and abiding by government regulations. And yet, somehow, government agencies like the city hall and internal revenue have been scrutinizing our company and fining us for neglecting to do trivial stuff -- when all around us we can see the proverbial big fish getting away with their tax payments. If we weren't better managers, we would almost be tempted to cook the books!

So I'm not mad at people like Jim Paredes who have lost hope in this blighted country and have gone to live abroad. Because after all, in other countries, the system works. In the Netherlands and other countries, their lawmakers take public transportation to go to work. I've heard several anecdotes about Members of Parliament riding bikes and taking the train to go to Parliament. When and if a crime happens in most other countries, the criminals are caught and tried and sent to jail. Do you think someone will ever get punished for the oil spill in Dumaguete? Did we ever get payback from the Marcoses for stealing taxpayers' money? Or the various major shipping and mining and [insert your own industry here] disasters?

Pro-death lawmakers say we need capital punishment because it scares away criminals. I think they're wrong. What really scares criminals is realizing that the system works. When someone does something wrong, they will get found out and punished. The less the threat of this happening, the more brazen the criminals would be. And the more our social environment would encourage breaking the law. Because, after all, if our leaders are doing it, why should I keep being a law-abiding citizen in a non-working government?

Let's not blame the Filipinos who go abroad and behave like good citizens there. Let's blame our leaders and enforcers who have done nothing but think of their own good and have shown nothing but disrespect of the very laws they are supposed to be upholding.

What would happen if our leaders really started to lead? If they started tightening the screws on law enforcers to really apply the law without prejudice? If say, traffic enforcers started to revoke the permissions of unruly bus drivers and their companies? Or we started putting to jail the economic saboteurs, just like the US did to the top managers of Enron?

Then I would think Filipinos would have more respect for our system. We would have more respect for our leaders and for ourselves and would then start treating each other with more respect.