My dad, now in heaven, was a trained accountant in the Philippines, and worked for several large companies over his career. Growing up, he'd tell us stories about the corrupt practices he witnessed and ethical pressures he faced. Perhaps that’s one reason he made sure this lesson stuck with all of his children: "Do the right thing, and don't take shortcuts."

As a teenager, I filed this under "just another dad thing." As an adult, I've come to see how much wisdom is actually in it, sometimes learning it the harder way myself. Doing the right thing may not feel like the efficient choice in the moment. It usually only proves itself right in hindsight.

I also want to be honest that this isn't always black and white. Different people face different pressures, with real consequences attached. We're not writing this to judge anyone's circumstances. But we believe every person carries real power in their own hands, the power to choose. That power, multiplied across millions of us, is exactly how a country changes.

Corruption isn't unique to the Philippines, or to any one country. But it's worth remembering that underneath any corrupt system, anywhere, is a series of very ordinary, individual choices. What's encouraging is that the research on this doesn't point to some unique character flaw in any one culture. It points to something far more within our control. And one builder in our own community has spent 17 years proving exactly what's possible when you decide your answer long before you ever need it.

We've also got some real conversation to share from the last issue. Let’s dig in. 

Christeen

There's a quiet assumption under a lot of corruption talk in developing economies: that people here are simply more willing to look the other way. The data doesn't back that up.

Economists once ran an identical corruption experiment with real participants in Melbourne, Delhi, Jakarta, and Singapore, testing how willing people were, in a controlled game, to offer or accept a bribe. Indonesian participants showed a much lower tolerance for corruption than expected, while Singaporean participants, from one of the world's least corrupt countries by reputation, showed a higher tolerance than expected. A country's corruption problem and its citizens' personal willingness to be corrupted aren't the same thing.

That reframes things usefully. If individual character isn't the bottleneck, the shortcut isn't mostly a moral failing waiting to be preached at. It's structural and situational, shaped by what's normalized, monitored, and visible around a person. The lever isn't "convince people to be honest." It's building the structures that make the honest choice the automatic one, before the pressure moment arrives.

How might we help leaders decide to do the right thing before they're ever tested, instead of hoping they'll figure it out in the moment?

In Indonesia, an economist ran a field experiment across more than 600 village road-building projects to test what would cut corruption in public spending. Raising government audits from 4% of projects to 100% reduced missing expenditures by eight percentage points, while grassroots monitoring alone barely moved the needle. It wasn't appeals to conscience that worked. It was making the outcome visible and checked.

A 2024 field experiment took this into the workplace. Researcher Diana Dakhlallah studied bribery among healthcare workers across five public hospitals in Morocco, testing whether threatening to reveal bribe-taking to coworkers changed behavior. Workers cut back where bribery was already common, but not where it was rare, because it's only once bribery crosses a visible threshold inside a group that people feel the social cost of belonging to it.

Corruption doesn't mostly get defeated by better people. It gets defeated by better visibility: audits, peers, and witnesses that make the choice, and its cost, impossible to hide from.

By 25, Dylan Wilk had it all: a Ferrari, a Porsche, even a helicopter to skip traffic. He'd built a UK gaming company starting at just 20. But he wasn't happy. One night, praying alone, he asked God a strange question: "Why am I rich?"

A trip to see Gawad Kalinga's slum-rebuilding work in the Philippines changed everything. He volunteered here for six years, then co-founded Human Nature in 2008 with his wife Anna Meloto-Wilk and her sister Camille Meloto.

For Wilk, this was never really a business plan. It was a faith decision first. He says he never makes big choices just by looking at the numbers, because numbers usually point the wrong way. Before Human Nature even started, he and his co-founders prayed and asked God to show them how to run it. He believes England didn't get better because of a new government. It changed because ordinary Christian business owners started living out their faith at work. He believes the same is true here: "Who is it paying those corrupt officials? It's the business community." For 17 years, Human Nature has never paid a single bribe, or "lagay." Other business owners often don't believe that's even possible.

That same habit, deciding the hard thing once, ahead of time, shows up everywhere in how he runs the company. Human Nature pays a living wage instead of the legal minimum, today guaranteeing at least 25,000 pesos a month in Metro Manila for cleaners, warehouse staff, messengers, and drivers. The company also closes every Sunday. One major mall kept them out for nine years over it, then charged a weekly penalty once they finally let Human Nature in. Wilk paid it, for years, until the mall dropped it. And if an employee gets caught stealing, they're not fired. They're retrained and given a way to repay what they took, backed by a 30-person HR and counseling team, including full-time chaplains, for around 750 employees.

You don't have to share Wilk's faith to learn from his story. What makes his choices last is this: each one was decided in advance, tied to something bigger than the moment. For Wilk, that's his faith. For you, it might be a promise to a friend, your family, or a value you refuse to break. Decide the hard thing now, before you're tested. That's what will hold you when the shortcut shows up.

Watch the full talk: Human Nature CEO: If you want to STOP CORRUPTION in the Philippines, then STOP paying! - Dream Bigger, YouTube

None of us get to choose whether pressure to cut a corner will show up. But we do get to choose whether we've already decided our answer, and whether anyone else knows it.

An invitation: Name one shortcut you know you'll eventually be tempted by. Write the plan in advance: "If ___ happens, then I will ___." Then do the part the research says actually matters: tell someone, out loud, a colleague or mentor. We can decide our line in private, but let's let it live in the open with someone who can hold us to it.

J. M. shared:

"It starts with the government bringing down bureaucracy. Right now, even opening something as simple as a sari-sari store can be overwhelming... If we truly want more people to become owners, we need to make it easier to start small. Simplify the process, reduce the layers of approval, and create a system that supports, rather than discourages, first-time entrepreneurs."

E. M. shared:

"This has been the dream of [our] Organization where the members are its owners... We want to have a store/grocery where the members will support and serve the community... I know this small amount can start small compared to the millions of pesos of the big companies. But we need to start somewhere."

One is asking the system to get out of the way. The other is already building and just needs a hand. Both are the same dream.

Read the last issue: How might we become a nation of owners?

Reply and tell me what you think of this issue. I read every response.

How Might We? is published every other week. To share this with someone building, hiring, investing in, or dreaming bigger for the Philippines — forward this email.