30 government execs under training as 'graftbusters'

MANILA, Philippines - Thirty delegates from 26 agencies are now taking up the third anti-graft graduate course of the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) as scholars of this six-month intensive training.

“These scholars have undergone and passed the examination required to qualify them for the Graduate Certificate Course in Corruption Prevention Batch 3,” said PAGC chief Secretary Constancia de Guzman.

“The 30 scholars, upon graduation, will virtually join the ranks of the 26 graftbusters that the previous two courses have yielded since 2006,” De Guzman said.

Slated at the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) in Ortigas Center, the course enables the scholars to earn masteral units but only after successfully designing and implementing their Corruption Prevention Action Plan (CPAP) in their respective agencies which is the final requirement for graduation, she said.

A scholar’s CPAP, according to De Guzman, must focus on an area in his agency found to be vulnerable to corruption as discussed and approved by the agency’s management. 

“The CPAP must include a reform initiative that fully addresses the problem,” she said.

The scholars just concluded the proposal defense of their respective CPAPs’ objectives, expected outputs and deliverables, conceptual framework and methodology.

They have three months until May to formulate and implement their respective CPAPs, De Guzman said.

The final defense of their respective CPAPs will be in June shortly before their graduation in the same month.

The course was conceived in 2006 and was supervised and facilitated by the DAP with initial support from the Rule of Law Effectiveness (ROLE) project of the United States Agency for International Development in partnership with the PAGC.