We can still holler and shout but we have to light the lamps that shed the light on corruption, injustice, ineptitude and abuse of power. When we do, you will see the villains scurry into the woodwork the way roaches do when you turn on the light. –Frank Serpico
Optimists may now come out of hiding, while cynics and pessimists, please hold your horses! There might possibly be some glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. It’s good news that there seems to be no more fuss about President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s erstwhile ill-advised choice of "economic adviser" Hernando de Soto of Peru, while Makati businessmen led by Ricardo Romulo and Jaime Zobel de Ayala last May 17 held a luncheon meeting with GMA’s chief anti-graft adviser Tony Kwok Wan-Mai to hear his plans to help clean up our corrupt government.
Kwok has been the legendary "Jet Li" of Hong Kong’s successful anti-corruption drive. He has decades of inspiring death-defying investigative martial arts and fearless assaults on the worst graft villains in public disservice.
During a lunch meeting with Makati businessmen, Kwok revealed he has started a European-funded project to fight corruption in 16 key government offices in the Philippines. Unlike most politicians who, since time immemorial, made empty promises and filled the air with their grandiose but open-ended rhetoric "to clean government of corruption," Kwok pledged dramatic results in 20 months’ time.
Kwok also described himself an optimist who believes GMA is truly sincere in rectifying the country’s international image as one of Asia’s most corrupt governments. A recent survey by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy said the Philippines has Asia’s second most corrupt government.
Who is Tony Kwok Wan-Mai? Appointed last year by GMA as chief adviser on anti-corruption of the Office of the President, Kwok is the former deputy commissioner and head of operations of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) of Hong Kong from 1996 to 2002. He has an unblemished record of 36 years of investigative work in law enforcement. He has management and MBA degrees from Hong Kong Polytechnic and City University, had police management training in Britain and studied China Studies in the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing, China.
Tony Kwok joined the Hong Kong Customs Department in 1966 as a sub-inspector and was promoted to inspector in 1970. During his nine years in Customs, he was active in customs control, drug enforcement, finance investigation, intelligence collation and prosecution. Kwok joined the ICAC as an investigator shortly after it was established in 1975. He was promoted through a number of ranks to become the first local officer to be appointed as the deputy commissioner and head of operations in 1996. He successfully led the operations department of ICAC through the historic milestone of Hong Kong’s reunification with mainland China in 1997. He retired from government service in October 2002.
Apart from the Philippines, Kwok has been invited to visit and share his professional expertise in Mauritius, Nigeria, Brunei, Japan, South Korea, Macau and China. Kwok is a remarkable man of impeccable credentials. He is a visiting professor of the National Prosecutors College in China and Wanli University in Ningbo City of China’s Zhejiang province; the training consultant of Anhui People’s Provincial Procuratorate in China; and part of the advisory board of the Chinese Legal Studies Association of North America. In Hong Kong, Tony Kwok assisted the Hong Kong University in designing the world’s first ever postgraduate diploma course in corruption studies and he is the honorary course director.
"It’s the beginning of a movement. This has to gather a momentum. This has to snowball. It’s good that government has put its money where its mouth is. We find it remarkable that the business community is reacting positively," De Backer said. Assistant Ombudsman Cyril Ramos estimates the government loses at least P260 billion a year to corruption. "If this had been collected, there could have been no need for additional taxes. Each Filipino should stop this menace of corruption."
Tony Kwok also recommended that the Philippine government launch a "shame campaign" in the form of TV commercials and drama series, to eradicate corruption in the bureaucracy. "You have to impress upon the public that corruption is a shame and that nobody should be proud and envious of it." Why not give this proposal a good try, to publicly shame so-called public servants who lead extravagant lifestyles, swagger around with excess bodyguards and aides, flashy limousines or SUVs, have expensive vices? But in fairness to the bureaucrats and officials, why don’t we cut costs or streamline the bloated bureaucracies, then allocate the savings for higher salaries for all government officials and employees to discourage corruption?
Some people, even the brahmins of the Makati Business Club who had lunch with him might have forgotten, but Tony Kwok Wan-Mai also said that combatting corruption in the private sector was as important as combating government corruption because it affects the country’s over-all investment climate. Remember how the roller-coaster BW stockmarket scandal badly shook international investors’ confidence in the integrity and efficiency of the Philippine Stock Exchange? How about the CAP and Pacific Plans pre-need controversies, are the owners and officers of these firms guilty of fraud and corruption or not?
Kwok said that Hong Kong’s anti-corruption laws cover the private sector, that both offering and accepting bribes are considered crimes under Hong Kong law. Hong Kong’s Prevention of Bribery Ordinance "helps the business sector maintain a commercial environment conducive to fair competition and efficiency," ICAC says on its website.
One of the outstanding feats of Hong Kong graft-buster Tony Kwok Wan-Mai happened in 1986, when he led a joint ICAC/Police Task Force of 30 officers to investigate the controversial collapse of Hong Kong’s third largest local bank which involved HK$3 billion (US$385M) in losses. Kwok led the swift conclusion of investigations in 16 months, decisively convicting five officials including extraditing two people from the United States. Kwok was awarded for this accomplishment.
Corruption is not only a searing moral issue, not only a mockery of our cherished Christian values and lofty democratic aspirations; corruption impoverishes us all and ravages the dynamism of the Philippine economy. Corruption is one major cause of the mass poverty which blights our society. There should be no compromise in the war against the systemic corruption, which shackles and sucks the lifeblood out of Philippine society.
What is worse than corruption per se is Philippine-style corruption, which lacks the perverse efficiency evident in many other societies. There is often no honor among our thieves here. How many foreign or even local investors had given bribes to politicians, but whose projects still are not allowed to take off from the ground or had been mindlessly sidelined completely? In many countries, corruption merely increases the cost of doing business like in China, Japan, Thailand or Malaysia, but here in our republic, a lot of corrupt officials obstruct and sabotage businesses!
The state must prosecute, jail and swiftly punish corrupt VIP politicians and bureaucrats who feast on Philippine government coffers like pests and leeches.
In the private sector, I recommend that all pyramid scheme masterminds, embezzlers, economic saboteurs, jueteng protectors and gambling lords, stockmarket manipulators, counterfeiters, white slavers, smugglers, illegal recruiters, arsonists, tax evaders, fraudulent business people who renege on contractual obligations like those allegedly victimizing pre-need clients – all of them should be dragged into the gallows in chains as part of graft-buster Tony Kwok Wan-Mai’s anti-corruption sweep!