Tom Allard, Jakarta – It is a pernicious malady that infects all levels of Indonesian society. Kickbacks, bribes, "special service" fees: corrupt activity that extends from the courts to parliament and the bureaucracy, the police and diplomatic service.
Now, after snaring some big-time scalps including a former central bank governor and an ambassador to Singapore, Indonesia's highly regarded Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, is taking its fight against graft to another level.
From next year it will roll out an innovative anti-corruption campaign targeting the next generation – school students. It will become part of the curriculum at thousands of schools across the archipelago.
Hasballah, a law student at Jakarta's Pancasila University, is one of the frontline troops in a drive aimed at snapping an ingrained culture of graft at its root. He has recently completed corruption commission training to become a mentor to senior high school students, explaining to them the price to society of corrupt behaviour and promoting the benefits of honesty.
"I was a bit surprised [by the training]," he said. "Several activities KPK categorised as corruption were in fact the sort of activities we did as a habit.
"We often booed government officers who were caught by KPK for corruption while, in fact, we ourselves did the same. [Things like] cheating in tests, marking up the school fees, sort of bribing lecturers by buying them their favourite food in order to get better marks."
Sneaking a peek at a fellow student's homework is a universal trait, but low salaries for teachers means that petty corruption in education institutions is rampant.
Poorly paid teachers, for example, are known to hold special after-hours classes for a fee to supplement their incomes. Those that attend do well; those who don't seem to slip down the rankings no matter how smart they are or how hard they work.
The state-run SMA-13 high school in Jakarta has been running a pilot anti-corruption program for several years. It has a "canteen of honesty", where there are no cashiers and students take the drinks and food, putting the money in an unattended box.
"The canteen didn't run well in the beginning," says the school's deputy principal, Rasmadi. "All the stuff was gone but the money was not equal to the stuff purchased. But it's getting better and better. Next year we plan to sell stationery as well."
The canteen of honesty is just one part of the education "module" in the commission's anti-corruption curriculum, which will be adopted by religious, state and private schools from elementary to senior high levels. "We teach them here, if you cheat at school age, you will likely cheat for the rest of your life," Rasmadi said.
Indonesia consistently ranks at the bottom end of global corruption indexes, although it has been showing steady, if slow, improvement in recent years.
Rezki Ribowo, deputy executive director at the Indonesian chapter of Transparency International, says corruption became ingrained in Indonesia under the Dutch colonialists and their system of patronage.
The Soeharto dictatorship took graft to another level, as the long-time leader funnelled billions in state funds to his family and his cronies, solidifying his power base.
Indonesia's democratic reforms in some ways made the problem worse, creating layers of government and devolving power to the regions, widening the number of officials who could take kickbacks.
Still, ordinary Indonesians are fed up with corruption, and commitments to anti-graft measures carry huge political benefits; they swept Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to office in 2004.
The commission's staff are heroes. Their stings are on the front pages of Indonesian newspapers almost daily. But, said Ribowo: "This is a long-term project. To change this, you have to change the perception of the people, that corruption doesn't pay, that it doesn't have to be like this."