TACKLING CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES AN OUTSIDER'S EXPERT VIEW
Corruption has absolutely nothing to do with culture and everything to do with political and personal will.
Those who point to traditions and history are simply making the poorest of excuses and are in basic denial by simply refusing to accept personal and collective responsibility for the state they are in.
So says one of the world’s leading anti-corruption experts -- Tony Kwok, who spoke at a public forum on Friday at Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City. As proof, the former Deputy Head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong pointed to the overarching Chinese culture and Confucian traditions in his home town which transformed itself from being one of the most corrupt societies to one of the cleanest.
“We love money and wealth creation and the family to us is everything – but the secret is zero tolerance for corruption.”
The charismatic Kwok took delight in challenging those in the audience who imagined it would take decades for the Philippines to rid itself of the legacy of generations of graft.
In Hong Kong, he reminded people, it took just three years...
...as Kwok reminded and showed his audience in Quezon City on Friday through graphs and charts citing reliable public opinion surveys, “all presidents of the Philippines enjoy high confidence about combating corruption at the beginning.”
The election of the past four presidents (since the period of Cory Aquino) provided a “golden opportunity” when public confidence was high. But in each case, confidence subsequently collapsed. Public confidence and political credibility, he said was one of several key factors in ensuring a successful anti-corruption strategy and result.
Political will is crucial, he insisted. “All Philippine presidents have made statements and promises about corruption, but the follow-through has been missing.”
He indicated that it was crucial for administrations to move behind the hyperbole and turn statements and promises into action. The Philippines he said enjoys some of the strongest and best laws against corruption – and yet it fell down on implementation. The Philippine law on public procurement was a perfect case in point: It was one of the best laws in the world.
And yet, Kwok said: “System and laws are not enough – it is all about enforcement.”
He demonstrated that while many South East Asian countries had their own statutory anti-corruption commissions and groups, many fell down and have proved failures when it came to implementation.
Such failures, Kwok argued, were down to such things as a lack of resources; lack of independence; the wrong strategy; inadequate laws; inadequate jurisdiction; lack of credibility and support; lack of any coalition of support; a corrupt judiciary; a lack of professional staff and a lack of public accountability and political will.
He pointed out that here in the Philippines it took on average 12 years for a corruption case to be decided in court.
And one of his recommendations for the Philippines was for an overall plan that would allow the judiciary to solve up to 90 per cent of corruption allegations and cases within 12 months...
And while many need no convincing, Kwok also made a very clear case linking economic performance to corruption.
“If you want economic growth you really need to fight corruption. Foreign investment is simply not comfortable going into countries where there is high corruption. When it comes to foreign investment, Hong Kong is very popular and the Philippines far less so. Why? Simply there is no level playing field here and foreign investment needs a level playing field. The first aspect to that is the [public] budget. If you have a good control on corruption, you have good control and input into the budget. In the Philippines you have 20-30 per cent of the public budget lost to corruption. In Hong Kong that money goes to things like public housing – the benefits are clearly obvious.”
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