With President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo due to step down from Malacañang next year, talk has turned to the legacies that she will be leaving. One of the legacies most often mentioned is the legacy of corruption. Ms Arroyo is perceived to be one of the most corrupt presidents the country has ever had. During her incumbency the country has sunk to the depths of corruption, such that Transparency International last year ranked the Philippines 141st in a list of 180 countries.

What has not been written much about is the moral corruption during the Arroyo administration. There is financial corruption where the degree of corruption is measured by the amount of money that people in power amass. The financial corruption during the Arroyo administration, by most accounts, bids well to compete with that of the Marcos dictatorship. But worse than the financial corruption that has been taking place is the moral corruption of the nation.

Moral corruption is taking place because the Arroyo administration has shown that crime pays, that it is good to be bad, that it is all right to lie, cheat and steal so long as one is not caught. Ovid wrote in “Heroides,” “The end justifies the means,” and since then corrupt politicians have used this statement as their guide in their official acts. One can lie, cheat and steal to be able to continue to hold on to power, and power is used to lie, cheat and steal and amass greater wealth.

The Arroyo administration has used money to strengthen its hold on power. An example of this was the distribution of bags of money to congressmen and local government officials after a meeting in Malacañang at a time when the President was facing an impeachment move. There is always talk of money changing hands when Ms Arroyo faces a political crisis or when a move that would benefit her politically is under way. This is the way of Arroyo’s transactional politics.

The corruption is humongous; amounts are no longer just in the millions—they’re in the tens of millions, hundreds of millions, even billions. Almost every big business deal or project involving the government is honeycombed with graft and corruption. From the very beginning of the Arroyo administration the corruption mill has been operating. Remember the alleged $2-million IMPSA bribe for which former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez is now facing a court case? And now, the “midnight” Laiban Dam project is suspected to yield hundreds of millions of pesos in “commissions” for a favored few.

Many corrupt deals and projects have been exposed in the Senate and the media, but how many cases have been filed in court? Has anybody been prosecuted successfully and put behind bars? None. No big fish has been caught and jailed. It is this climate of impunity that has made a mockery of the law, and that is setting a bad example for people, and especially for young, impressionable minds.

Some people have described Ms Arroyo’s politics as Machiavellian, and they may be correct. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that it has been a common view among philosophers that there is a special relationship between moral goodness and legitimate authority. Many authors believe that the use of political power is rightful only if it is exercised by a ruler whose personal moral character is strictly virtuous.

It is this moralistic view of authority that Machiavelli criticizes in his best-known book, “The Prince.” For Machiavelli, there is no moral basis on which to judge the difference between legitimate and illegitimate uses of power. Rather, authority and power are coequal: whoever has power has the right to command; but goodness does not ensure power and the good person has no more authority by virtue of being good. In this context, Ms Arroyo would be described as politically amoral, or, if you will, Machiavellian.

Many political commentators say that financial corruption is one of the major “negative” legacies of President Arroyo. (We say “negative” because a legacy is generally thought to be beneficial for the legatee.) But moral corruption is the even worse negative legacy of this administration. It affects the government and the people all the way down the line. It is a legacy that the moral majority will junk and discard when the Arroyo administration finally bows out of power.