It used to be thought that with its finite resources the world cannot support its expanding population, but now undisputed—except by the uninformed and the guilty—is the fact that there is enough for every man’s needs but not enough for every man’s greed. This applies worldwide, even in the United States and Wall Street. “Bato-bato sa langit, ang tamaan huwag magagalit.”
Scams tell us a lot about the nature of our society—more than about the gullibility, greed, or ignorance of our people. Sociologists try to understand how these criminal schemes work, not by figuring out the motives and interests of the individuals they victimize, but by determining the types of social relationships they are able to tap. Moral terms like gullibility and greed contain no analytic value. But, the degree to which communications in a society like ours remain undifferentiated may explain why scam victims are quick to entrust their money to swindlers with no economic credentials or record.
On the part of the schemers-scammers it was, above all, greed. But on the part of the victims, it could be all or some of the above.
The scam that defrauded 15,000 investors of P12 billion of their hard-earned money is caused by GREED—the greed of the officers of Aman Futures, the company behind the scam, and the greed of the victimized investors.
The latest SWS survey reports that 95 percent of Filipinos are hopeful that 2012 will be better, surpassing the 70-percent support base that President Aquino currently enjoys. With this level of hope, Filipinos might soon recover the self-confidence diminished by the last few decades. In the 1950s, the Philippines, as Asia’s “sole Catholic country” and [...]
“MONEY STICKS where it hits.” This is the “flypaper effect.” It shows up in a Commission on Audit analysis of 1,351 year-end reports by local governments that nailed 182 officials who squandered their 20 percent Local Development Fund. “The LDF is the most abused budget item today,” Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo asserts. Of 182 [...]
“The beginning of wisdom is to call all things by their right names.” Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan worked by that proverb at Senate hearings on fishkills. Tons of milkfish turned belly-up in waters crammed with fish pens that breached “carrying capacity.” The root cause is not climate change or poverty, asserted Pangilinan. “It is greed. [...]
The massive fishkills in Taal Lake, Batangas, and in parts of Pangasinan were caused by a five-letter word: G-R-E-E-D. The fish pen and fish cage operators were so greedy for profit that they overstocked their fish pens and cages with fingerlings. There is so much profit from raising milkfish and tilapia in fish pens and [...]
