Exploitation and corruption in this country is extremely rampant. As a matter of fact, it becomes a vicious norm and is now part of our bad culture. These two words, “exploitation” and “corruption” are almost the same in meaning and in practice because you cannot have one without the other and vice versa. This vicious cycle are being done both by the powerful and the weak, both by the rich and the poor, both by the wise and the ignorant, both by religious people and non-religious people. This evil practice is not actually new for it happens since time immemorial.

Exploitation in simple terms is defined as “treating people and the situation unfairly by using their ideas, resources and what they are for your own advantage” with less or without any return at all to the one being taken advantage of. In other words, these are they who are called “opportunists”. This evil of taking advantage over your fellow human being or over one institution will always lead to another form of evil that is corruption. There are many faces of exploitation and corruption as we could observed them vividly occurring in our country. Political, religious, moral, economic, sexual and gender are areas where exploitation and corruption are usually being done.

A classic example on this evil is the many bogus non-government organizations or foundations of Napoles. Janet Napoles put up a lot of bogus NGOs in order to make money. As a matter of fact, she is just playing with the law thinking that she can make money to her advantage. This is just a tip of the ice-berg. There are many bogus non-government organizations or foundations in the country even here in the province of Bohol pretending to be pro-poor, pro-environment, pro-life, pro-God just to entice their potential donors and the public especially the common people for their own personal or organizational agenda. What is so sad about this is that the so called poor people, the masses, are the ones vulnerable to become victims by these unscrupulous people who work behind these organizations.

Pretending to offer help and assistance for the poor families and usually this offering of assistance is in the form of educational sponsorships, livelihood and health programs among others just to entice the naive poor people but once the naïve get hook of it, the unscrupulous people will take advantage by controlling, manipulating, and dictating over them. Worse than that they would take pictures and videos on the naïve poor children and their families, all in the name of documentation as they call it, but in reality they would present those pictures and videos to their foreign donors and potential sponsors who have no real knowledge about the situation of those poor kids and families they are sponsoring. In other words, these unscrupulous people are there to enrich themselves by exploiting and taking advantage of these naïve poor people.

The worst thing on this bogus non-government organizations or foundations is that lack of transparency and accountability. They raise money from various sources around the globe for and in behalf of these poor kids and families but only a small fraction of the funds raised shall be given to these poor kids but the largest fraction of it shall go to their own pockets in terms of salaries, honoraria and other incentives. One factor that contributes to the worst scenario is the absence of any financial statement report. There should be a full disclosure and complete transparency on financial matters, especially of those funds being raised in the name of poor kids and families, to all stakeholders and partners who deserve to be informed.

A lot of organizations are converting themselves into a foundation because they want to be exempted from any tax payment of the government. The law provides that churches, religious organizations and foundations or charitable organizations are exempted from taxation and this is where exploitation begins. We would like to suggest that because this is happening as a way of life among those who are involved in this evil practice, the government should step in and probably amend the law on this matter and put some teeth in the law to grind on these “opportunists”.