The opportunity costs of a political scandal

We were asked by at least three respected gentlemen to identify the economic losses of the ongoing investigations into the illegal-drugs trade that seemed to have spread wildly and had interwoven itself deep into the fabric of the government bureaucracy. Indeed, public concern is high and feverish to the point of pandemic alarm and utter nauseating disgust. Congressmen, living up to their reputations, insist on dragging the investigations in aid of legislation to the thickest slime as they revel in the sex and sleaze that plays in the darkest recesses of their most intellectually depraved minds. 

On the other side of the debate, controversy is just as disgusting. Among the most accountable officials from the deposed administration that had sought to perpetuate itself for another six years were it’s justice and interior Cabinet secretaries, both of whom should have been central to any effort to cleanse society of the drug menace.

Note the irony. One appointed and subsequently anointed led the-then ruling party as its presidential standard-bearer, while the other was a natural shoo-in among the ruling party senatorial ticket. Had they had a modicum of competence, this drug menace would have been tackled long before, and not as it now appears, a convenient money machine funding political ambition.

Given the testimonies in both Houses, the principal conduits of the illegal- drugs trade have been the police and local government officials. One serves as protection and a convenient redistribution channel. The other as beneficiaries. If there is an economic question that needs exploring, it is in the funding aspect of political campaigns. It is called narco politics, a term that describes the bureaucracy inherited from previous years.

Note another irony. This one, a mere footnote, but quite revealing. The dirtiest mind among the solons who elicited the most sickening snickering was the representative from the same province of the losing presidential contender under whom the senator he ridiculed ran vying for a senatorial slot.

Our legislators, rather than attend to the economics of campaign funding from drugs and the imperatives of the greater macroeconomy, choose to get their rocks off over a woman fiercely standing her ground opposite the partisan fence. Brew in congressional depravity with narco politics and one might imagine an excrement-full septic tank spilling over.

Curious as to the economic repercussions, one request came from a former Cabinet secretary whose portfolio was the education and development of our youth. The other was from a former government official in charge of the macroeconomy. The third, from the chairman of the board of one of the country’s oldest financial institutions. However diverse the foundations were, what was compelling was the grave concern shared by each.

Most of the evident economic impacts deal with opportunity losses or unquantified social costs. These are not immediately visible. They are derived when options are taken and choices are made to engage in one mutually exclusive activity, as opposed to viable alternatives.

From the perspective of the former governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and for the bank chairman of the board who has to deal with key policy rates and financial intermediation, both critical in re-channeling surpluses to capital deficits, the opportunity losses are clear.

A key economic initiative of the Duterte administration is tax reform. Two-pronged, one was the strategic lowering of corporate-income taxes to the optimal level of 15 percent, designed to spur employment, industrial activity and consumption-led growth.

Another was the rationalization of the tax bracketing system that should transform the current archaic structure from a warped anomaly to one more equitable. This would also have led to consumption-charged economic growth, preserving as it does personal incomes rather than losing these to systemic corruption.

Both require urgent legislation. Unfortunately, Congress has not started, as our solons are vigorously busy pleasuring their egos.

For the former secretary of education, the highest invisible prices are being paid by the vulnerable and impressionable youth over whom he had charge. The daily, if not hourly, barrage of mangled bullet-riddled bodies of men, women and children with their faces bound in duct tape increasingly cauterizes our senses. In the 1960s, a dismembered body was traumatizing enough to be the banner headline for weeks. Now, worse crimes perpetrated by the authorities themselves are mere footnotes. The drastic diminution in the value of life, in this case, is not simply revenue foregone; it is an immeasurable cost that can never be recovered.

For solons of sex and sleaze who’ve tanked the question of extra-judicial killings in favor of tax-paid voyeurism, it would cost taxpayers less if they self-indulged their fancies in the privacy of a toilet rather than in the august chambers of Congress.