Sila an malipa!
“Garbage.” This was the chilling term the bagman used to describe the
millions of people’s money stuffed into luggage: funds intended for public
welfare but instead funneled into the pockets of greedy politicians who
shamelessly demanded their cuts from government projects, as though the
nation’s coffers were their personal property.
Marc Jayson Cayabyab of The Philippine Star reported that a Senate Blue
Ribbon hearing saw former Marine Master Sergeant Orly Regala Guteza testify he
had delivered 46 Rimowa suitcases, each containing ₱48 million, to the
residences of Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co and then House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
Introduced by Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, who at times seemed to guide him through
his affidavit, Guteza described the cash as “basura,” or contraband, alleging
it came from illegal kickbacks in flood control projects.
The Rimowa suitcase, a symbol of luxury and affluence, became the
unlikely vessel for illicit millions. Its polished image stood in stark
contrast to the contents it carried, cash dismissed as “garbage.” This jarring
juxtaposition exposes the moral bankruptcy of corruption, where public wealth
is both flaunted through luxury and demeaned as worthless contraband.
From here, the contrast becomes even more painful: the haunting images
of the poor, submerged in floodwaters, some losing their lives to the calamity
itself, others to the diseases it inevitably brings. And yet, to greedy
politicians and complicit government workers, such suffering seems to mean
nothing. Do they see these people too as mere “garbage,” collateral damage in
the service of their insatiable greed?
Psychology offers a disturbing lens for such behavior. Psychopathy is
recognized as a personality disorder marked by a lack of empathy, remorse, and
concern for the suffering of others (Hare, 1999). In the context of systemic
corruption, where greed overpowers moral responsibility and the well-being of
others is disregarded, one cannot help but ask: what form of collective
insanity does such behavior reveal?
Bandura’s (1999) theory of moral disengagement provides one answer,
explaining how individuals rationalize unethical conduct by minimizing harm,
displacing responsibility, or dehumanizing victims. When such mechanisms are
normalized within institutions, corruption becomes embedded in organizational
culture, numbing moral sensibilities on a societal scale.
Similarly, Sykes and Matza’s (1957) techniques of neutralization shed
light on how perpetrators of corruption justify their actions: through denial
of injury (“everyone does it”), denial of victim (“the government has plenty of
money”), or appeal to higher loyalties (“I must serve my political allies”).
These rationalizations allow systemic greed to thrive while silencing guilt.
Taken together, these perspectives suggest that the “collective
insanity” of corruption is not necessarily a psychiatric disorder but rather a
social pathology, an entrenched moral dysfunction that operates through shared
rationalizations, structural impunity, and the normalization of greed. It
demonstrates how systemic corruption corrodes not only governance but also the
ethical foundations of society.
Thus, when those in authority begin to see others as mere “garbage,”
their moral decay deepens into a kind of collective insanity, where humanity is
stripped away, and greed becomes the only logic that governs their actions.
Systemic corruption, then, reflects a kind of collective derangement: a
pathological fixation on greed that legitimizes harm to others as collateral.
This normalization of harm, carried out in the name of power and wealth, makes
corruption resemble a society-wide form of madness.
Look closely at the actions of some of our leaders: they vehemently deny
their own greed, shift blame onto scapegoats, and strip themselves of any sense
of guilt. In doing so, they exhibit a dangerous form of insanity, one that not
only corrodes the moral fabric of society but also carries within it the seeds
of their own eventual destruction.
In the end, it is they who embody the real garbage: the corrupt and the
greedy, not the people whose lives they exploit and demean.
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