‘RP making progress in anti-corruption drive’

Believe it or not, the Philippines is making headway in the fight against corruption.

This is according to government consultant on anti-corruption Tony Kwok who also called on the media yesterday to avoid being cynical about the government’s anti-corruption efforts.

"The media should play an active role in reporting these kinds of good things that the government has done in fighting corruption," Kwok said.

A Hong Kong native who spearheaded the former British crown colony’s drive against corruption for 27 years, Kwok said the recent surveys tagging the Philippines as one of the most corrupt countries in Asia were not based on scientific evidence.

Kwok said the polls were the result of the perception of respondents, most of them foreigners.

This was the reason why the media and the public as a whole should actively take part in the government’s fight against corruption, he said.

"The biggest enemy in fighting corruption is people’s cynicism, because they are not optimistic, because they are resigned to the (idea) that corruption is our way of life," Kwok said.

Compared to the last 16 years where the conviction rate of the Office of the Ombudsman had reached only 14 percent, Kwok said the last two years posted a more than 30-percent success rate.

"In the last two years, the number of dismissals (of government officials) was actually more than the total number of dismissals caused by the Ombudsman for the last 16 years," Kwok noted.

"So I’m going to be fair and say that, in this country, from the outside point of view, the Philippines has a corruption problem. But I am also convinced, and I have been here for two years, a lot of progress has been made by the Office of the Ombudsman and this needs to be given fair coverage by the media," he stressed.

In a recent survey released by the Hong Kong-based think-tank Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd., multinationals perceived corruption to be growing worse in Thailand and the Philippines.

Compared to these two countries, the same survey noted the corruption rate in other Asian countries was perceived to be declining.

Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) Chairwoman Constancia de Guzman also agreed the perception of foreign businessmen and entities might be unfair and inaccurate.

The perception was reported amid policies instituted by the government to prevent corruption in its line agencies, she said.

De Guzman released a list of the agencies and their ratings, saying they had implemented measures to address the problems.

The ones that landed in the "honor roll" were the Department of Health, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, the Department of Science and Technology and the Office of the President.

Those in the "horror roll" include the Bureau of Immigration, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior and Local Government, Department of Justice and the Department of Trade and Industry.