When Indonesia's president delivered his independence day speech to parliament, stressing the need to eradicate corruption, it was clear to many onlookers that the biggest problem was staring him in the face, Reuters reported.
In Indonesia, members of parliament top the charts when it comes to corrupt practices.
They're known in the media as "kucing garong" -- tomcats, who prowl the neighborhood in search of something to steal -- and the public here is treated to an almost daily diet of news about corrupt officials who skim, steal, or extort.
For decades, corruption has been a way of life in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.
It permeates almost every level of society, reducing the country's appeal to a wide array of foreign investors, and curbing Indonesia's potential for growth and development so that it lags far behind its Asian rivals, such as China and Malaysia.
With the fall of former president Suharto in 1998, and the move toward greater democracy and regional autonomy, the situation grew even worse, according to some business people, because with more potential decision-makers, that often meant that more officials had to be paid off.
True, Indonesia has pushed through a host of political, economic and social reforms in the past decade, but it's only quite recently that it has made more progress in tackling corruption.
