Grumblings

Over the past two weeks, casual chats over coffee and dinner with some friends who also happen to be business owners in Dumaguete became local touch points over how the whole Discaya fiasco has really taken the nation by storm. The rot runs deep, and the corruption extends far beyond the DPWH. All these are allegations, of course.

One friends owns several businesses in town—which I have promised not to mention or be more specific about. They had to close down one shop because, even after several years of that shop having “soft-opened,” City Engineering allegedly had yet to issue them an occupancy permit. Unless, of course, some kind of “deal” could be made. They refused—and soon opted to close down that shop instead. It was a small business endeavor, anyway, and closing it would not exactly hurt their bottomline.

Until, of course, they found themselves constructing a building within the city a few years ago. Again, City Engineering allegedly hee-hawed on providing an occupancy permit, and this time around my friend found it necessary to just give them what they wanted—much to the consternation of their contractor.

“Ma’am/Sir,” the wary contractor told them. “The moment we make this pay-off, with that kind of money, all other constructions we would be making in the future will fall under this trap.”

But my friend badly needed to open the building, because any delays would seriously affect their business, and so they promised they would make the appropriate pay-offs—just to get that damn occupancy permit. And they did.

“Sometimes, while driving down Dumaguete streets,” my friend told me, “I’d see that guy from that office driving his fancy car. And I’d get the urge to just plow into him, because I am so angry. And I’m not a murderous kind of person.”

We laughed. My friend is of the gentlest sort—always calm and collected.

“I mean, what we are trying to do is put up businesses in Dumaguete,” my friend continued, “and help hire people. But all these is so detrimental to entrepreneurs wanting to contribute to the economy.”

That night, we had dinner with another friend, who also happens to have two shops in Dumaguete. And without any prodding, my friend started complaining about the fact that business people like them always looked forward to the economic windfall of Christmas season—but come January and February, they would brace for the ultimate season of kickbacks from government agencies. Like, the Fire Department, allegedly.

“They make so many unnecessary demands, allegedly to keep our businesses up to acceptable standards,” my friend said. “But it’s really kickback. Once I had my business inspected, and they demanded this and that—and we could only follow their unreasonable requirement halfway. We could completely follow through with our choice of service providers, who could give us something more affordable—but no. We have to hire their own chosen service providers, who are apparently ‘accredited.’ A few days later, the inspector messaged: ‘Can you sponsor this and that for my [redacted]? My [redacted] is doing this and that for their [redacted].’ We did sponsor whatever that [redacted] needed, because after that, we finally got our permit. They ask for the weirdest things, too. Expensive motorcycles, for example. And we are not in the business of selling motorcycles at all!” My friend paused, then said: “Medyo nahadlok ko about the sponsorship thing kay bason ako ra iya gi-ask ato—but mas maayo makabalo ra pud sila that people talk!”

My friend has another friend who was eventually forced to close his business because of this system. “They really targeted him,” my friend said. “He owned a small restaurant, and he refused to pay. His kitchen had induction stoves just to make cooking safe, but they still asked him to build unnecessary fire suppression systems.” That friend eventually closed down his shop.

Still another friend had this to say when they learned I was writing this article: “[Redacted names of agencies] ask for appliances, phones, laptops, pag-Pasko. Pang-‘raffle’ daw. Ugh.”

I bet the rot does not stop there. The rot has become so much a part of the ecosystem of doing business here, no one even questions these practices anymore.

But the whole Discaya debacle has opened a can of worms, and I know for sure that those anomalous projects are not isolated to their respective localities. Already, we know of several Discaya infrastructure projects in Negros Oriental, with project managers now declaring that these projects have been declared finished and accomplished. But, given what we now know, does anyone doubt the quality of those projects? Who does not recall infrastructure projects in the city and the province that eventually crumbled in a year or two after their finish?

The terrible thing about corruption is not that we don’t know it exists. It’s that we’ve learned to live with it like a bad smell we can’t quite wash off. You hear it in coffee shop chatter, in the way we swap stories of absurd permits and “special requirements” with the same tone we use for the weather—resigned, familiar, inevitable. It’s the banality of rot. You grease a palm here, you sponsor a project there, and the gears of bureaucracy suddenly start to turn. Refuse, and you risk the slow death of your livelihood.

And it’s not just the money. It’s the humiliation. My friend, the gentlest soul you could ever meet, fantasizes about ramming their car into a bureaucrat’s shiny new vehicle. That’s what corruption does—it curdles kindness, makes decent people dream violent thoughts they’d never act on. It chips away at dignity until you’re left cynical, muttering to yourself that maybe honesty really does have no place here.

The Discaya fiasco is just the latest theater, and we gawk at it because it’s spectacle. But beneath the headlines, it’s also a mirror. The same decay that allowed the Discaya projects to be declared “accomplished” while everyone knows they’ll eventually crumble—it’s the same decay suffocating small businesses in Dumaguete, the same decay clogging our regulatory inspections, our operation permits, our everyday transactions.

Here’s the truth no one wants to say aloud: corruption has become our ecosystem. And ecosystems are hard to kill. But maybe, just maybe, this scandal is also a chance to name the rot again, to refuse silence, to remind ourselves we deserve better. Because if we stop naming it, if we stop raging, the rot wins—and we go on breathing this poisoned air, pretending it’s normal.