COMMENT | Corruption is like a termite infestation that silently eats away at the foundations of a house.

Before long, the house will crumble and harm its occupants. The house can be saved, only if preventative measures are taken early.

As a child, my parents would be horrified to learn that a civil servant or minister had been charged with corruption, amounting to several thousand ringgits.

Growing up, I noticed that the figures involved became more and more staggering. The several thousand ringgits in corruption money ballooned to hundreds of thousands of ringgits.

Years later, Malaysians would read about millions, then hundreds of billions of ringgits of corrupt money.

Most Malaysians think that corruption is only when money passes from one person to another. They are not aware that there are many forms of corruption.