Most and least corrupt at the same time

FROM today's Inquirer:

No. 2 on the list of “most corrupt” agencies was the Philippine National Police (21 percent), followed by the Department of Agriculture (19 percent), Bureau of Internal Revenue (16 percent), DepEd (15 percent) and Bureau of Customs (15 percent).

“Interestingly, while the DepEd is identified as ‘most corrupt’ by 15 percent of Filipinos, 20 percent (of the respondents) deem it as one of the least corrupt government agencies in the country,” Pulse Asia noted.

Methinks it has something to do with the high level of respect still generally accorded by the population to hardworking public school teachers.

Corruption however starts to rear its head as one moves up in the totem pole. Teacher items for sale, overpriced textbooks and computers, padded cost of school and multipurpose buildings: these are some of the many faces corruption takes in our public schools.

Many years back, a friend once told my wife: "Mag-principal ka 'boy! Yaon d'yan an kwarta." She is now one, and controversies have always hounded her in all schools she was posted.

As graduation time nears, these vultures will again have a field day exacting their pound of flesh on hapless parents, especially the poor. "Libre man baga an pagpaeskwela" goes their twisted reasoning.

With an old-boy network instinctively looking after their kind, reinforced by criss-crossing padi-madi relations (called the compadrazgo culture in academic literature) I'm not so sure if change will ever take place in the DepEd that I know.