How China, Singapore and Hong Kong beat corruption

CORRUPTION kills economies more efficiently than any war. It steals not only money but hope. Every Filipino knows it, yet most Philippine administrations still drown in scandals. Corruption cases seem to be fevers that break out but are fast forgotten.

The pork barrel scam was investigated in 2014, with over 120 individuals charged. As of today only 30 have been convicted, and most are out on bail. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s graft charge (for misuse of his P200 million pork barrel), filed in 2014, will be overtaken by his “malversation” case involving ghost flood control projects. The former Pagcor chairman was charged in 2013 for misuse of at least P50 million in funds, yet is now still out on bail, and obviously had so much money he ran — unsuccessfully — for congressman in 2022.

What makes other Asian governments succeed where we eternally fail? The short answer: political will, plus system.

Across Asia three systems have proved that corruption isn’t destiny, nor a dearth of morality in a people’s culture: China’s Communist Party purge, Hong Kong’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), and Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB). Different regimes, same outcome: the certainty of punishment.

In the early 1970s Hong Kong’s police and licensing offices were cesspools of bribery. The breaking point came in 1973 when senior police officer Peter Godber fled the colony with millions of unexplained dollars. Public fury forced the British governor to create the ICAC in 1974 — an independent body reporting directly to him, insulated from police interference.

ICAC built its campaign on three equal pillars: operations (investigation), corruption prevention and community relations. It jailed high-ranking officers, rewrote procedures, simplified permits, and launched a relentless education drive. By the late 1980s petty graft had virtually vanished. The ICAC became Hong Kong’s moral brand — proof that independence, funding and transparency can clean a government without bloodshed.

Singapore

When Singapore became self-governing in 1959, bribery was endemic. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew understood investors wouldn’t trust a corrupt port — a reality now hounding our country. His answer was ruthless simplicity: empower the CPIB, raise civil-service pay to competitive private-sector levels, and make punishment swift.

Under Lee, even ministers went to jail. CPIB can investigate the prime minister himself and appeal to the president if blocked. No Senate theatrics, no plea bargaining — just quick trials, confiscation of ill-gotten wealth and public shame. Combine that with clear pay scales and you get what economists call a “clean equilibrium”: corruption simply isn’t worth it.

Then there is China, where anti-corruption became an existential weapon. When Xi Jinping took power in 2012, he warned that graft could destroy the Communist Party. His solution was to weaponize discipline: the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and later the National Supervisory Commission (NSC) — a single, nationwide enforcement machine covering every official, party member or not.

Xi’s campaign targeted both “tigers and flies.” Since 2012 more than 4.7 million officials have been disciplined, including 553 at ministerial rank or above. Operations “Sky Net” and “Fox Hunt” chased fugitives in 90 countries and recovered billions in offshore assets. Western critics call it a purge; Beijing calls it self-revolution. Either way, it works: Corruption in China today is dangerous, not casual.

Fear

The CPC’s formula is fear + system. The liuzhi procedure lets investigators detain suspects for months outside the normal courts — harsh, but leak-proof. Rotating inspection teams audit whole provinces every two years; big-data algorithms match income with property records. It’s a bureaucratic inquisition driven by statistics, not morality.

No democracy could — or should — copy that wholesale. But the lesson is clear: results come from coherence, not sermons. In each success story, one authority truly commands: the CPC in China, the ICAC Commissioner in Hong Kong, the prime minister in Singapore.

Here, power is scattered among agencies that all bark but hardly bite. I predict pretty soon, Independent Commission for Infrastructure head Andres Reyes as well his the more impatient Rogelio Singson, DPWH secretary Vince Dizon, Ombudsman Boying Remulla, the still-unannounced justice secretary, and yes, that unpleasant Claire Castro will soon be barking against each other.

We have the Ombudsman’s Office, Sandiganbayan, COA, AMLC, NBI, and a dozen Senate committees — but none can compel the conviction of the powerful. Former House speaker Martin Romualdez, whom most observers believe is the mastermind of the ghost flood-control scam, is every day distancing himself from it, with media men saying this will be their best Christmas ever. Every scandal devolves into tv hearings and selective outrage. By the time the next administration arrives, the accused are back in office.

Why? Because our leaders treat corruption as a moral flaw, not an engineering failure. They hope for better men instead of building better systems. We design agencies to look independent but starve them of funds; we multiply watchdogs until none can bite.

The CPC enforces honesty through surveillance. ICAC sustains it through transparency. CPIB maintains it through deterrence. None relies on moral lectures; all rely on certainty of consequence. Each system fits its society.

Borrow

We don’t need Beijing’s dungeons, but we could copy its data discipline: link procurement contracts, SALNs and land titles through analytics. Fraud would become a statistical anomaly impossible to hide.

From Hong Kong, we could import the idea of permanent prevention units inside each department—civilian, not police—tasked to redesign procedures before bribes occur.

From Singapore, we should adopt predictable punishment: fast-track courts for corruption, automatic forfeiture and transparent reporting. Justice delayed is bribery delivered.

And from all three: leaders willing to lose friends for credibility. Xi sacked Zhou Yongkang in charge of the CPC’s entire security apparatus and a member of the seven-man standing committee of the Politburo, who would be roughly in the same position as presidential cousin and former Speaker Martin Romualdez.

Lee Kuan Yew jailed party colleagues; Hong Kong governors defied the police. Here, presidents shield allies and sacrifice whistleblowers.

Western commentators dismiss China’s system as authoritarian. Maybe so — but compare outcomes. Democracies preach “checks and balances” but depend on plea bargains by expensive lawyers, who would be beheaded in Chin, and televised hearings. China enforces honesty by bureaucracy; Singapore and Hong Kong by design. We enforce hypocrisy by press releases.

Corruption doesn’t vanish through elections; it vanishes through certainty. When stealing guarantees loss — of liberty, property, or life — people stop stealing. When punishment is uncertain, corruption becomes policy.

Numbers

Since 2012 China has investigated 4.7 million officials. Singapore convicted ministers. Hong Kong erased petty graft. The Philippines? Only thirty convictions in a decade, mostly small fry such as a small-town mayor who gave his stock of rice to evacuees, since it was officially disbursed for a town fiesta. Our biggest scandals end in retirement, not prison.

Integrity here is seasonal: it blooms during crises and wilts before elections. Every serious anti-corruption drive requires three ingredients we’ve never combined:

– Political commitment strong enough to offend allies;

– Institutional autonomy protected by funding and tenure;

– Public trust built on transparency, not rhetoric.

Without those, reform is theater.

Hong Kong cleaned itself with independence. Singapore did it with meritocracy. China did it with an iron glove. The common denominator is coherence — a system whose rules are predictable and whose enforcement is relentless. Our democracy has neither.

The CPC treats corruption as a disease of power and cures it with more power. ICAC treats it as a disease of systems and cures it with transparency. CPIB treats it as a disease of opportunity and cures it with swift punishment.

The Philippines treats it as a disease of character — and prays for better men. Until we stop canonizing thieves and start engineering consequences, we’ll remain what we are: a republic of investigations without convictions.

System

Clean government is not a moral miracle; it’s a management system. Hong Kong, Singapore and China each prove that corruption can be crushed when leadership, law and logistics align.

Every society gets the corruption it tolerates. We tolerate it daily, with jokes, excuses and votes. Others built systems that make graft unthinkable; we built one that makes it inevitable. And that, more than ideology or culture, explains why they win the war on corruption — and why we never will.

But let’s be realistic, this administration is as capable of undertaking a campaign against corruption as Marcos Jr. is capable of governing. I suggest a commission by concerned citizens be set up to formulate a comprehensive plan to destroy corruption once and for all in this land, which would include drafts of bills, and even amendments to the Constitution, to empower the plan. Former congressman Zaldy Co, who is alleged to be the top dog (next to the topmost dog) who ran the flood control projects scam, should be another of the huge flashing red warning signs: End our silly and corrupt party-list system.

The likely new administration in 2028 should then make such a plan as its platform for the election campaign, and implement it on Day One — that is, get Congress to institutionalize it as a law — when it assumes power, calling it the War on Corruption.

My series exposing the five lies on which Aquino III and Marcos Jr.’s hostile stance versus China are based, continues on Friday.

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How China, Singapore and Hong Kong beat corruption
Source: Breaking News PH