With the blatant stealing and corruption in our midst and its corresponding effects on our lives, what will a Christian say, what will a Christian do?
This is not a new question. It might help us to see what resources from our Christian tradition can help us understand the issue of corruption. If there is any protest, it shall come from our universal sense of justice springing from the core of our humanity and from the particular lens of our Christian sensibility.
Corruption: Thou shalt not steal
“Thou shalt not steal” is the eighth commandment. In the Bible, there is no excuse for stealing. If someone steals, the rule is to return four or five times over. “When someone steals an ox or a sheep and slaughters it or sells it, the thief shall pay five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep.” (Ex. 22:1–3). If he can’t, he shall be sold himself. In the Hammurabi Code, the compensation reaches as high as tenfold.
In the Philippine context, stealing is not only interpersonal, as it is contemplated in the Bible. It has become complex and structural. One could hardly identify who the thief is, when the robbery was done, or from whom it was stolen. It is hidden behind laws, the General Appropriations Act, and budget insertions. The thieves know how to hide and when to strike so that no one knows.
It has taken on different names in recent years — pork barrel, confidential funds, kickbacks, tongpats, SOP, cut, lagay, suhol. It has also taken different forms — fertilizer fund, flood control projects, road and bridge projects, school building projects, street lighting projects, dredging projects, even “ghost” projects. Our corrupt politicians and contractors are so creative. Name it, we have it.
“More than ₱1 trillion has been lost to flood control alone, more than half of it under the Duterte administration,” reports Panfilo Lacson. Moreover, politicians and their contractors have stolen millions to buy face masks from China while cashing in on the sick during the pandemic, or pocketed billions in government flood control projects while people wallow in the water inside their homes.
Regardless of their legal and paralegal justification, it is the same animal — stealing.
Accountability: restitution or death
What are the consequences of stealing? Restitution. To return what has been stolen is an act of accountability. The thieves have to pay four or five times or more depending on the gravity of the offense, especially if the person you owe or stole from is very poor. Because that is the only thing he or she has. If they cannot pay, the thief shall be sold as payment for his act. (See the parable of the unforgiving servant, Mt. 18:21–35.)
“If you take your neighbor’s cloak as guarantee, you shall restore it before the sun goes down, for it may be your neighbor’s only clothing to use as a cover. In what else shall that person sleep? And when your neighbor cries out to me, I will listen, for I am compassionate.” (Ex. 22:26–27).
Stealing from and taking advantage of a poor person is worse. One must pay higher. “You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry; my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children orphans.” (Ex. 22:23–24).
This is the question Nathan asked David as an analogy for his sin: a rich man with hundreds of flocks forcibly took the little ewe lamb which was the poor man’s only possession. David’s reply was certain, not knowing it was about him: “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.” (2 Sam. 12:5–6).
The New Testament used this same metaphor: the thieves “fell down and died.” In the Acts of the Apostles, Ananias and Sapphira stole some money owed to the community from their sold property. The early Christian community promised to live together and have their property in common. But Ananias and Sapphira cheated and did not give the whole sum. When Peter confronted them, the Bible says, they “fell down and died” (Acts 5:1–11).
Bible commentators think the “death” was used as a metaphor to instill the seriousness of deceit and corruption in a new struggling community. For their non-accountability spells death for the social body.
In the Philippines, thieves refuse to be accountable. They muster all personal networks and government resources to avoid congressional hearings and impeachment processes. The Senate and the Supreme Court voted against accountability. Like Sapphira, who knew what her husband did, they cover each other’s acts, or else they too will be implicated.
Some were imprisoned under previous governments, but were granted pardon in the following regimes in exchange for political favors. They are now called “honorables” in the Congress or the Senate. They have financed social media trolls, hired mainstream media, or organized concerts with artists in order to justify their ignominious deeds. Their children, on the other hand, obscenely flaunt their wealth — their cars, their jewelry, their clothes, their food — for all the poor hungry people to see.
I hope something happens in this ongoing investigation. I really hope someone gets convicted, put behind bars, or will just “drop dead,” to borrow the expression of the Bible.
We need to assert that stealing has consequences. But it looks like Filipino Christians have lost their moral sense. Or we no longer dare to raise a voice of anger and indignation, for corruption has become “normal” to the Filipino eye. I envy the Indonesians and their Muslim population. They know how to take their politicians to task to demand accountability.
Jesus’ decisive act
Jesus did not tolerate corruption and abuse of the poor. He criticized the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and interpretation of the law that alienated the poor from real participation in worship and in society. He contested the positions of the Sanhedrin and the central religious-political power in Jerusalem. For this, he caught the ire and interest of the powers that be. Later, it was these corrupt forces — both religious and political — who condemned him to death.
The final day came for him to do his decisive act in the Temple, a “very dangerous act.” “Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.” (John 2:15).
In anger, Jesus exclaimed: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” He was not only talking about the physical space and the actual business. His act was deeper than that. It was a fierce resistance against the abuse of religious, political, and economic power that oppressed the people who are also God’s Temples — the message he had been proclaiming all his life since he preached in that small synagogue in Galilee.
The Temple of Jerusalem signified all the corruption and injustice of the Roman occupation in connivance with the local religious and political elite. The Temple had become a “den of robbers.”
A Spanish theologian, José Pagola, writes: “The den is not the place where crimes are committed but outside it; the temple is where the thieves and criminals take refuge afterwards.” To give justification to their acts, to legitimize their rule, to get holy water to bless their stolen projects. Do you still wonder why the corrupt donate millions to the church, befriend priests, bishops, and religious?
Maybe Jesus disrupted a few money changers or overturned a few tables; the police could have contained him right away and the activities continued. But his decisive act carried strong prophetic power against the reigning regime beyond Jerusalem.
Because Jesus wanted to strike at the nerve of the corrupt system that kills the poor, he did not mind risking his life. Actually, this is his main message of justice and liberation when he says, “The Kingdom of God is among you.” And he paid for it with his life.
Christians, where art thou?
Father Daniel Franklin Pilario, C.M., is the President of Adamson University in Manila. He is a theologian, professor, and pastor of an urban poor community on the outskirts of the Philippine capital. He is also Vincentian Chair for Social Justice at St. John’s University in New York.
