Trust is the invisible foundation of a country. It’s what sustains everything: the rule of law, the economy, democratic coexistence. When trust is broken, it’s not just a symbolic bond that is severed: the entire structure upon which communal life rests collapses. And Chile has been eroding that foundation for years without wanting to acknowledge it, even though reality demonstrates it every day.
The recent episode involving parliamentarians Cristián Araya and Matías Walker, who shamelessly admitted to receiving 1.7 million pesos from Sergio Yáber, the Property Registrar of Puente Alto, implicated in the “Belarusian Doll” case, is yet another unequivocal sign that we are facing a public decline that has erased all boundaries between unethical behavior, immorality, and outright criminality.
This civic decay didn’t emerge overnight. It incubated for years in a political ecosystem that normalized corporate protections, reciprocal favors, tacit agreements, and opacity in the appointments of key authorities: Supreme Court justices, appeals court judges, the national and regional prosecutors, notaries, registrars, and government officials. The political and legal elite became increasingly entrenched in a logic of self-protection that ultimately erased all boundaries. What was once an ethical lapse became “customary practice.” Immorality was justified as “political judgment.” And crimes began to be disguised as mere “mistakes.”
In this context, it’s worth asking whether Chile is once again approaching a pact similar to that of 2015, when the National Prosecutor, Jorge Abbott, was appointed with the practical objective of ending investigations into illegal campaign financing, accompanied by the removal of the head of the Internal Revenue Service (SII) to prevent further complaints from causing discomfort. The “money and politics” scheme was reduced to almost nothing. In most cases, the decision was made not to pursue the cases, and in the longest trial in recent history, two judges put forward downright grotesque arguments: claiming that Pablo Longueira did not act as a public official because he negotiated a legal provision favorable to a company using his personal email and not the Senate’s official email. This rationalization starkly illustrates the moral scale on which much of the power structure in Chile has operated.
The problem isn’t just ethical. It’s structural. When authorities simultaneously cross the line between ethical, immoral, and criminal, they undermine the rule of law from within, weaken its foundations, and erode its legitimacy. And when the rule of law weakens, trust disappears. Without trust, there is no investment, no innovation, no growth, no stability, and no democratic coexistence. Country risk lies in the moral degradation of those who should be protecting institutions, not using them for their own benefit. Today, country risk is measured in trust.
Very few dare to denounce this public decline. That is why the voice of Archbishop Fernando Chomali is so valuable. He wrote: “Young people, I ask your forgiveness for the country we have left you. Corruption, influence peddling, and shamelessness are the causes of your difficulties in studying, planning your future, and having hope. They are also the cause of the disrepute of politics. It hurts!”
It hurts, yes. But it hurts even more to realize that this honest self-criticism is the exception, not the rule. The voices of political parties, professional associations, business leaders, and workers are sorely missed; as is that of civil society, which has been silenced as a consequence of the “foundations” scandal.
Chile has not only lost trust: it has lost its moral compass. And when a country loses its moral compass, it also loses its ability to project itself into the future. Ethical degradation is not a moralistic debate: it is the greatest political, economic, and social risk of our time. Because when the elites lose their sense of shame, the country loses its way.