Why do public officials tainted or implicated in corruption scandals see the need to keep running again and again or at least be reappointed to public office? Why, for instance, have 15 politicians indicted or even convicted in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) pork barrel scam taken this path, with 14 of them, at some point, running again for public office, some even several times, and three becoming Cabinet members?

The simple answer to the questions above would be political “rehabilitation” and relegimitation.

Political rehabilitation is the process by which a public official who has been been tarnished, tainted, disgraced or ostracized due to past actions or associations regains public acceptability, respectability, credibility and influence. Rehabilitation is very much related to relegitimation (or relegitimization), that is, regaining the trust of voters or the general public.

But why are rehabilitation and relegitimation so important? For honest public officials who have been wrongly implicated, rehabilitation and relegitimation are necessary for them to be able to continue or resume their engagement in earnest public service without hindrances or inhibitions. The same would hold for once-corrupt officials who have repented and have not been disqualified from public office.

When some public officials keep being implicated in corruption scandals, however, one starts to wonder if genuine public service is their real motivation for the drive towards “rehabilitation“ and relegitimation.

For instance, Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva, and former Senator Ramon Revilla, Jr., who were all indicted in the 2013 PDAF pork barrel scam, have again been implicated in the current Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) flood control scam.

Earlier, in 2000, Jinggoy had been implicated in the first of his three grand corruption cases, Juetengate, for which both he and his father, President Joseph Estrada, had been charged with plunder. (In 2007, the elder Estrada, who was earlier ousted from power by EDSA II, was convicted, but Jinggoy was acquitted. The convicted ex-president ran for Manila mayor and won — a classic case of relegitimation.)

Sometimes, it may even go beyond just being implicated in multiple corruption scandals. Former Cagayan de Oro mayor and representative Constantino Jaraula was convicted — not just implicated — in two cases of grand corruption: the 2004 fertilizer scam and the PDAF scam.

Continued predation

With the growing number of public officials being tainted or implicated in corruption cases, a distinct possibility can be well entertained: That far from serving as paths to public-spiritedness or redemption, “rehabilitation” and relegitimation may have well been used — and can still be used — as instruments for the resumption or continuation of predation.

For those who have been convicted or even just implicated in corruption scandals, “rehabilitation” and relegitimation are an absolute necessity for getting back into the very lucrative enterprise of political corruption. A corrupt public official who has been implicated in a corruption scandal can still engage in the game through connections in government without much “rehabilitation” and relegitimation, but such engagement would not be in the big-leagues scale as before.

When public officials — corrupt or not — are tainted in a corruption scandal, they can be socially ostracized and opportunities for working out profitable business transactions dwindle. What corrupt politicians miss the most, however, is access to the whole process of rent creation and extraction. Rent is income gained through ownership or control over a limited asset or resource. The government creates rent through laws or policies granting licenses, subsidies, monopolies, quotas, protection, and other privileges to the limited asset or resource. In corrupt deals, rent owners, such as contracting firms, share the rent extracted with public officials through bribes or kickbacks.

To get back into the rent creation and extraction game and resume the plunder of government-regulated resources, a corrupt public official who has been implicated in a scandal first has to play the “rehabilitation” and relegitimation game. Through government connections, “rehabilitated” officials sometimes manage to land important government appointments. Many corrupt politicians, however, prefer the electoral mode, as this opens the doors to greater access to power and resources, “popular mandate” and, ultimately, bigger loot.

Election as start of rehab

The electoral process can already be the start of a corrupt “rehabilitation” and relegimitation process. As illustrated in the DPWH flood control scam, corrupt, rent-seeking companies and entrepreneurs “invest” in politician-backers through generous but shady campaign donations. These donations serve as seed capital for the escalating campaign expenditures, especially for patronage and vote-buying, of corrupt politicians. If a corrupt politician is elected (or reelected), the rent-seeking “investors” would expect what retired Brigadier General Eliseo Rio, Jr., calls “return of investment.”

Winning an election after being implicated in a corruption scandal does not only allow corrupt politicians to regain access to the rent creation and extraction process. It also gives them the opportunity to thwart, obstruct, manipulate or undermine investigations into political corruption.

Corrupt legislators in the two houses of Congress, for instance, can gain invaluable lessons in handling interrogations, political alliance dynamics and media/social media projection in the process of being the investigators in some probes and being the investigated in others.

In a land of political dynasties, the disgrace of a corrupt politician can sometimes have a major impact on the electoral chances of sons, daughters and relatives who wish to follow in his or her footsteps. Playing the “rehabilitation” and relegitimation card helps ensure a smooth passing of the torch in a grand and time-honored dynastic tradition: corruption. Is it any wonder that the same prominent surnames and middle names keep cropping up in corruption scandals?

The DPWH flood control scam is said to be the biggest corruption scandal in Philippine history. It is not enough to scrutinize the rent creation and extraction process that it underwent. The anti-corruption movement should also examine the “rehabilitation” and relegitimation process that came before it … and that will come after it. – Rappler.com

Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, who has retired from teaching Political Science and International Relations at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, taught an online course on “Corruption” at the Ateneo de Manila University last year and earlier this year. He is now based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.