Miriam enumerates traits of corrupt politicians

Miriam Defensor-Santiago / Wikipedia Photo

MANILA – To prevent the people from voting for corrupt candidates in 2016, Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago reveals the traits of politicians who are most likely to commit plunder and corruption once elected.

“With so many pending cases for plunder and corruption against high-profile political leaders, common sense dictates that as scholars, we need to examine the culture of corruption: its sources, its mind-sets, and whether the candidates we vote for might present a profile of corruption as a work in progress,” Santiago said.

The statement was made during her speech at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila to remind the youth to vote wisely in the coming 2016 elections.

The senator noted the corruption in the country is “schematic because it has become a routine practice in the conduct of daily business.”

“This is why it is of the utmost importance to choose the best possible president and other national officials in the 2016 elections,” Santiago said.

She then encouraged the youth to be more critical in choosing the candidates adding that they must vote for those who uses logic and reason.

She also urged them to check on the candidates’ record of academic and professional excellence and achievements recognized on the national or even international level.

The following are the list of traits she said

The senator did not name names but she enumerated the traits of a corrupt official that the public should watch out for:

Machiavellianism, a mind-set characterized by manipulation and the need for power; narcissism, an inflated sense of self-importance and grandiosity; subclinical psychopathy, an aggregate of maladaptive trait deficits linked to antisocial deviance; and weak moral identity and primitive moral thinking.

“Sometimes this person commits an act of corruption by morally disengaging himself from the corruption by justifying the act using palliative comparisons,” Santiago said.

“For example, the person linked to plunder will continue to receive kickbacks, on the reasoning that the kickback is very little compared with earnings of a convicted plunderer,” she added.