The Philippine government is losing up to 20 billion pesos (US$406 million) to corruption every year, not including commissions and kickbacks from state infrastructure contracts, a senior official said yesterday.
Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin, citing studies of the problem, said the government was "losing 20 billion pesos every year to corruption from procurement."
"This does not include possible leakages in government contracts awarded to the private sector," she said. Some experts said the estimate was too low.
"If we include the corruption on the local government level ... the amount could be so much more," University of the Philippines professor Amado Mendoza said.
Mendoza and other professors at the university's School of Economics were speaking about research conducted for an upcoming book, Political Economy of Corruption: Studies in Transparent and Accountable Governance. Studies showed that corruption in the Philippines was "a political, not a bureaucratic phenomenon", said one of the book's co-authors, Emmanuel de Dios.
Mendoza said the huge amounts of money needed to win elections in the Philippines induced corruption.
Other co-authors Marie Antoinette Virtucio and Melchor Lalunio said in a paper the government of ousted president Joseph Estrada had set up "an established government system for concession and privatization that was vulnerable to corruption."
"At the center of various issues of corruption during the Estrada administration was the purported existence of a `nocturnal Cabinet' or `court' composed of relatives and close, personal friends of the deposed president," they said.
"As it is, there is also no sign that the new political leadership will change this course [of privatization]," the authors said.
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