*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
It often begins with a whisper — a quiet assurance, a friendly offer, a text message that says, “Sir, kaya ko ‘yan ayusin.” For many, it sounds harmless, even helpful. But that whisper is where corruption starts to breathe. That simple promise to “fix” something in government — whether a permit, an appointment, a bidding, or a case — is the first crack in the wall of integrity that holds our Republic together.
Fixing is the commercialization of influence. It is any act, by a public officer or private individual, that manipulates a government process, decision, or outcome in exchange for money, favor, or personal gain. It includes asking money so someone can be appointed to a government position. It includes paying to shorten a process that should go through legal scrutiny. It includes demanding payment for instant accreditation, and it includes scripting or predetermining the outcome of a government bidding so that there is a guaranteed winner. It includes bribing a court officer or judge to manipulate a case in the Judiciary. And it includes the unseen hand that pays lobbyists and middlemen to delay, water down, or kill a proposed law in Congress.
Fixing is not just an act of corruption — it is a system of betrayal. It eats every branch of government, from the smallest municipal office to the most powerful institutions of justice and legislation.
The flood control scandal that recently rocked the nation is a painful example. Behind the billions lost and the useless projects that worsened our flooding is not just greed — it is systematic fixing. Projects were pre-arranged, bidding results were scripted, and suppliers were handpicked long before the public bidding even began. Middlemen and brokers pretended to “connect” contractors to officials, collecting their commissions before a single bag of cement was poured. Documents were fast-tracked not because of efficiency but because of payoff. The tragedy is that what was supposed to control floods ended up drowning the people in corruption.
That scandal was not a single act of theft — it was fixing institutionalized. It was a conspiracy of shortcuts disguised as progress. And that is precisely why the Philippines needs a law that calls it by its true name: the Anti-Government Fixing Act.
This law must make fixing an independent and serious crime. It must treat every attempt to manipulate a government transaction — whether in the Executive, the Judiciary, or the Legislature — as a betrayal of the Constitution itself. The crime must not only punish those who receive money but also those who offer, solicit, or broker it. Even the attempt to fix, the whisper of promise, or the offer of connection must already be punishable. And the penalty must reflect the gravity of the act — for those who fix justice, positions, and laws do not simply commit corruption; they commit treason against the public trust.
But beyond punishment, the nation must attack the roots. Fixing thrives where inefficiency and desperation meet. Citizens pay fixers because they have lost faith in the system. The cure is not only fear of imprisonment but restoration of trust. Processes must be transparent, digitalized, and trackable. Permits, contracts, and case statuses must be accessible online. When systems are clear and timelines are predictable, fixers lose their customers.
We must also protect the brave. Whistleblowers who expose fixers, whether in government offices or the private sector, should not be left unguarded. They must be given protection, anonymity, and reward. Like the “Operation Private Eye” of anti-drug agencies, a similar reward system can be used to catch fixers in action. If citizens can profit from reporting corruption instead of committing it, we change the culture of silence into a culture of vigilance.
And reform must reach beyond laws and systems — it must reach the conscience. We must teach integrity not just as a word but as a way of life. From schools to seminars, from barangay halls to boardrooms, we must redefine diskarte. True diskarte is not finding ways around the law but finding ways to uphold it with honor.
I have seen the faces of those who suffered from fixers — the poor man who paid to hasten a permit that never came, the businesswoman whose legitimate bid was lost to prearranged winners, the litigant whose case was bought by another party, and the reformer whose proposed bill was buried by paid influence. And I have seen the faces of the fixers themselves — smiling in luxury, proud of their “connections,” never realizing that every peso they earned came from someone else’s humiliation.
Fixing is not efficiency. It is treachery. It is the quiet murder of justice, the invisible sabotage of democracy, and the reason why corruption feels unstoppable. The flood control scandal, the rigged appointments, the bought verdicts — they are not separate crimes but different verses of the same national tragedy called fixing.
It is time to end this culture of whisper and exchange. The day we criminalize fixing in all its forms — from the barangay level to the halls of power — is the day we reclaim honor in governance. When no one can buy a decision, purchase a post, or bury a law, then the Republic will finally be able to breathe again.
Let us call fixing what it truly is — a crime not just against government, but against the Filipino people. And let us stop pretending that shortcuts lead to progress, because every shortcut paid for by corruption is a detour toward collapse.
When fixing
ends, the flood of corruption will finally subside — and the nation, cleansed
of its own mud, will stand tall once more.
