Gutiérrez 1

Nicolás Gutiérrez

Professor Matthew Dolloff

Writing and Rethoric

5 February 2019

Corruption: the moral decadence of Rafael Correa`s government.

In this paper I intend to argue about, why the moral decadence of former

ecuadorian government preceded by Rafael Correa`s had or not corruption as the main

characteristic. Therefore, it is important to define corruption, as a dishonest act for

fulfilling personal interests, resulting in destroying people`s trust in someone or

something. For that, when in 2006 a young Rafael Correa was presidential candidate, he

appealed to the trust and support of the poorest people of Ecuador, giving them hope

and happiness. Moreover, for gaining that support his political monologue had its core

in blaming former ecuadorian politicians and rich people, for all the problems of

Ecuador; that aspect will have an important role in covering up corruption. However,

over the years of his government that speech of moral integrity, honesty and patriotism

began to fall apart. Thus, in the first paragraph I will intend to argue about what social

aspects helped or in any way supported the spread of corruption through Correa`s

government; also, explaining, how the use of media (tv, radio, social media), maintained

those social aspects, in favor of the former government. Consequently, in the second

paragraph I will argue about how certain economic aspects allowed Ecuador to enjoy

the benefits of an economic development never seen before, which unfortunately had

corruption at its core. Finally, in the last paragraph I will explain the political aspects

that justified the creation of a government system so large, that corruption survived ten

years in ecuadorinas lives.

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First, as it was mentioned before, in the presidential campaign of 2006 Rafael

Correa intended to gain poor people support; but this aspect was possible, because

unlikely his rival candidate Alvaro Noboa, Correa visited each city by bus, approaching

people, sympathizing with their problems and needs, promising them what he called a

citizen revolution (“Revolución Ciudadana”), that would make Ecuador a better

country. So, as a result of that social approach I his campaign, in the day of the election

Rafael Correa came close to win in the first round; but he had to be in a second round

election in which he surprisingly won. Therefore, when he was president, he had to

justify his political monologue of equal distribution of wealth and the attack to the rich

people, by the seizure of the patrimony of some rich people, this action was done with

the Deposit guarantee Agency (AGD), which took as property of the State: tv channels,

radios, airlines and several companies of other industries. Rafael Correa justified this

action, saying that everything seized was property of the people who were involved in

the banking holiday (“Feriado Bancario”) of 1999. This arbitrary seizure could have

recovered something of the 1999 crisis, but the form of political show in which it was

made, had as its only objective to receive popular recognition. Consequently, Correa's

government had that support without much opposition from any social or political

figure. For this reason, Correa saw with his collaborators, that after having made a risky

move such as seizing millions of dollars in companies; they could now do anything

without the Ecuadorians arguing more than necessary. However, it is important to note,

that not all actions were just to attack large economic groups, the former government

put Ecuador in the map as an important commercial and economic partner. In addition,

they were able to develop this popular support through an impressive public

expenditure, which resulted in hundreds of hospitals, schools and roads; in this way, by

showing in tv channels, radios and social media, those great accomplishments, a

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generalized recognition of the poorest ecuadorians and the middle class was gained;

giving them hope that things would improve, resulting in the blindly support of the

actions of the Correa`s government. But with all that support, Rafael Correa’s

collaborators did not saw limit to their actions and took an opportunity in that blind

popular support, to fulfill their personal interests by overriding any rule of honesty. A

clear example, of not knowing until when the popular support will help you, is the

situation of the former vice president Jorge Glass, who, abusing his position as minister

of strategic sectors and of vice president, thought that the unconditional support of his

supporters was going always keep him away from a jail, for illegally associating with

his uncle, but the evidence shows the opposite. Even tough, with irrefutable evidence of

Glass's crimes, political figures like Ricardo Patiño, Alexis Mera, Marcela Aguiñaga

and Gabriela Rivadeneira, publicly say that Glass is innocent and that his judgment is

nothing more than a diatribe of a political persecution. Also, that blind support of his

collaborator and political supporters, continued to sustain the innocence of Jorge Glass

and this was demonstrated in the protest they organized outside the court of justice

where Glass was judged, pointing that a person one hundred percent guilty was

innocent, only to make a mediatic show.

In that lead, it is important to question how that incredible public expenditure

that allowed the former government to gain so many adepts, was possible. The first

aspect that make it possible was that, at that time the price of oil was over one hundred

dollars, allowing the government to have billions in incomes. But what logic tells to do

when receiving some much money is to save some of that, in the case of facing an

economic crisis. However, for some reason Correa and his economic team thought

saving some of that money wasn`t a good idea and spent it all in building public

infrastructures like hospitals, schools and roads; and creating new public entities,
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making the government system to growth amazingly. But what Rafael Correa and his

supporter will say is that spending millions in building schools, hospital, or roads is not

wrong and that it is responsibilities of a government to build them; and they are correct,

but it has to be done correctly, with the proper technical planning, with an audit group

and mainly it must be done for the price that was planned to be done. However, this

great public expenditure allowed to connect the country, in addition to the construction

of schools thousands of children have had the opportunity to study; likewise, access to

health was assured for all; and those results have been widely recognized. Nevertheless,

the results have been overshadowed because in most of the public works of the previous

government have been failures in the technical planning or failures in the auditing of

public resources intended for these constructions. Moreover, the common denominator

of all these infrastructures with irregularities, is the overprice they present. For example,

there are some media sources assuring that some roads that were built by the former

government had an overprice from 6% to 270% of the original price. Moreover,

alongside with the high oil price, money loans of countries such as China allowed the

previous government to continue receiving millions and millions of dollars each month

and very important and vital works were made for social development. However certain

Correa collaborators did not promote this development for the good of the people but to

fill their personal interests, and with that it is known that public officers from Correa`s

government received with no moral integrity a total of 35 million in bribes. And those

most of those loans from China are intended to be paid with nothing else than oil; also,

the public debt of Ecuador exceeded the limit of 40% of the GDP and it is known over

60 billion dollars, resulting in a long life consequence for future generations to pay.

Finally, both social and economic aspects used to spread, and support corruption

would not have been important without political help and protection. For that, Correa
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built a huge government system to protect himself from every side against any political

opposition threat. For example, he formed his own intelligence agency (SENAIN), as an

instrument to spy political opposition and to control any threat of a coup d etat; but

many of his supporters would say that USA has its own intelligence agency, at that we

do not see it as something wrong; however, balancing the external and internal threats

that USA faces, against the external and internal threats that Ecuador faces. The need of

spending millions only in spying political opposition, does not make any sense. In

addition, since the beginning Correa understood the importance of communicating the

public how their money was spent in schools, hospitals or roads, by producing

incredible tv commercial promoting the governments actions. And, using

communication to connect with the people is correct but, the former government not

only used it to communicate how the money was spent in infrastructure; they also used

tv and radio to publicly attack a particular person or entity that the government

considered dishonest. Meanwhile, in the backyard of Correa`s government his own

people were developing dishonest actions, by overpricing the construction of roads or

hospitals; or, imposing millionaire sanction to journalists in which the government was

the judge and the prosecutor at the same time. For this aspect, the former government

even promoted a law that justified those economic sanctions, this law was called by the

people as “Ley Mordaza”; even though, it is true that Ecuador needed a law of

communication that would define the guidelines of a free, respectful and accessible

communication. But the intention of this law was not to ensure communication for all

citizens but had in the background the intention to be a mechanism to control and

punish anyone who does not think or act as the government wanted, resulting in a

government that somehow acted as a communication dictatorship.

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In conclusion, Ecuador fell for false promises of a better future; even though we

have modern schools, hospitals and roads, the moral decadence that it is behind them,

overshadows any positive result. Our social, economic and political identity was shred

limb by limb throughout the ten years of the former government, by our inoperancy of

not doing against a corrupt government. And, for that reason, we are now, and we will

be paying the consequences of the former government`s actions by having to ask for

more loans to China or having to put in the market Treasury Bonds with huge interest

rate. Moreover, one of the most important consequences we are facing is that the trust of

people in any ecuadorian government is forever now broken. Therefore, as a country we

have to learn from the mistake of trusting a socialism politician like Correa and never

do it again and try to raise up our moral identity as a country. Also, whoever denies this

episode of moral decadence in Ecuador`s history, will be condemned to repeat it.