THE ongoing RCBC money-laundering investigation has evidently become a topic of conversation from New York to Singapore; besides major newspapers in both those cities (and elsewhere outside the Philippines) reporting on the story, I also received phone calls from people in both places eager to discuss the matter.

That should come as no surprise given the magnitude of the crime, but unfortunately not many people here seem to have grasped yet just how damaging this is to the country. The sad reality is that the all-too-typical way this scandal is being addressed only serves to camouflage the relatively simple, broad facts of the case, and almost certainly won’t lead to the swift, decisive solutions the country needs to implement to avoid becoming a financial pariah.