Civil Society-Oriented Measures for
Enhancing
Transparency and Accountability in
Governance and the Civil Service
by Segundo E Romero, PhD
Senior
Consultant, Development Academy of the Philippines
seromero@mkt.weblinq.com
The Transparency and Accountability Situation
According to Social Weather Stations surveys, Filipinos perceive the following to be the main forms of corruption: (1) general bribery / gift-giving, (2) diversion of budget away from projects, (3) no transparency in bidding, (3) overpricing procurement, (4) doing substandard project, (5) underreporting tax collection, (6) tax and tariff evasion, (7) pork barrel, and (8) cronyism.
The Office of the Ombudsman has estimated that US$48 billion has been lost by the Philippine Government over the last 20 years on account of corruption. This exceeds the present foreign debt of US$40.6 billion. The Commission on Audit (COA) has estimated that corruption costs the Philippines about PhP2 billion (US$44.5 million) each year. It is estimated that some 20 percent of the annual budget is lost to corruption.
The topnotchers in the number of corruption complaints received by the Office of the Ombudsman are the following agencies of the government:
- Department of Public Works and Highways (26.9% of all cases)
- Department of Environment and Natural Resources (17.5 %)
- Department of Education, Culture, and Sports (15.9%)
- Bureau of Customs /Philippine Ports Authority
- National Irrigation Administration
- Bureau of Internal Revenue
- Department of Health
- Department of Interior and Local Government
- National Power Corporation
- Bureau of Immigration
There is public perception that the anti-graft bodies and the judiciary have been ineffective against graft and corruption and, worse, are involved in it. In a survey by the Social Weather Stations, 62 percent of respondents believed there were significant levels of corruption in the judiciary. Some 65 percent believed many lawyers could be bribed, and 57 percent believed even judges could be bribed.
Only 0.5 out of every 10,000 civil servants gets prosecuted for corrupt acts in the Philippines, compared to 8 in Hong Kong. 1998/1999 surveys show 20-22 percent of the public has been asked for bribes in government transactions. Only 4 percent in 1999 bothered to report the solicitation. Those who did not complain reasoned that (1) it was futile to complain (51%); (2) the amount involved is too small (21%); there could be a retaliation (15%); and they did not know where to file the complaint (10%).
Three notable structural sources of corruption are (1) that candidates must finance their own electoral campaigns, owing a debt of gratitude to many sponsors who call in the favors when the candidates are elected, (2) the incredibly poor compensation and reward system for civil servants, and (3) the poor enforcement of anti-corruption laws that renders corruption a low risk, high reward activity. Other causes of corruption in the Philippines are
wide discretion of bureaucrats, burdensome regulations and transaction systems, weak control mechanisms, information asymmetry between the rich and the poor, weak public vigilance, and elements of Filipino political culture that translate into tolerance of corruption.
Studies of corruption in the Philippines point to these adverse effects of corruption: (1) wastage of public resources, as when infrastructure projects are poor and substandard and do not last their projected useful lifetimes; (2) low revenue collection, as when bribes are paid in lieu of taxes and charges in revenue collecting agencies; (3) other socially undesirable behavior such as tax evasion and smuggling; (4) increases in the cost of doing business in the country; (5) cronyism, the highest form of corruption, expressed in cartels and monopolies that reduce competitiveness in industry; and (6) waste in the resources for development which postpones the poor Filipino''s escape from poverty.
Over the past two years, the Estrada Government has undertaken bureaucracy-wide reforms to streamline government procedures, overhaul the procurement system, remove overlaps and redundancies, and using information and communication technology for efficiency, transparency, accountability. Several oversight bodies have sought to undertake punitive, preventive, and developmental approaches to instilling accountability and transparency in the Civil Service.
Civil society and civil society organizations have increasingly taken anti-corruption action. The Volunteers against Crime and Corruption (VACC) and the Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Governance (CCAGG) are exemplars of emerging anti-corruption NGOs that have demonstrated effective tactics.
The international community has offered assistance, support, and best practices and models against corruption. International and foreign donor agencies have exerted pressure on government to undertake a credible and effective anti-corruption campaign. They have also assisted in the formulation and implementation of anti-corruption projects in government and civil society.
The Infrastructure for Accountability and Transparency
The Philippines has good laws for instilling accountability and transparency. The 1987 Constitution itself has a section on "Accountability of Public Officers". The Revised Penal Code has a section on "Crimes Committed by Public Officers." The Administrative Code of 1987 (EO 292) sets forth the organization and procedures by which the bureaucracy should operate.
There are two main anti-corruption laws: RA 3019, "Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act" passed into law in the late fifties and is the first and most comprehensive Philippine law aimed against corruption in government. The law enumerates eleven corrupt practices in addition to acts or omissions already penalized by existing criminal laws.
This law specifies the following acts as constituting graft and corruption:
1. Accepting or having any member of the family accept employment in a private
enterprise which has pending official business with his office;
2. Causing undue injury to any party or giving any private party unwarranted benefits or
advantage in the discharge of official, administrative or judicial functions;
3. Neglecting or refusing to give, after due demand or request, any matter pending before
him for the purpose of gaining pecuniary material benefit or giving undue advantage or
discrimination against any party;
4. Entering into any transaction or contract on behalf of the government which will result
in the disadvantage of the latter;
5. Directly or indirectly having financial or pecuniary interest in any business, contract, or
transaction in which he takes part in his official capacity;
6. Directly or indirectly becoming interested for personal gain or having material gain in any transaction or activity requiring the approval of the board or panel of which he is a
member;
7. Knowingly approving or granting licenses, permits, privileges, or benefits to persons not
qualified or not legally entitled to such;
8. Divulging valuable information of confidential nature".
RA 6713, enacted in 1988 is "An Act Establishing a Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees to Uphold the Time-Honored Principle of Public Office being a Public Trust, Granting Incentives and Rewards for Exemplary Service, Enumerating Prohibited Acts and Transactions and Providing Penalties for Violations Thereof and Other Purposes."
Three agencies are constitutionally mandated to exercise oversight over government personnel. These are the Civil Service Commission, the Commission on Audit and the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Civil Service Commission (CSC) is the central personnel agency of the government. It is mandated to safeguard the merit system in the public service by ensuring that only the fit and qualified enter its ranks. It is engaged in standard setting, in human resource development; test administration; personnel records management and adjudication, functioning as the administrative court of the Philippine public service.
The Commission on Audit is the fiscal watchdog of the government. It has the power to review and regulate disbursement of public funds and the use of government property to prevent irregular, unnecessary, or extravagant expenditures or usage. Like the CSC, it has quasi-judicial powers.
The Office of the Ombudsman is the Philippine's primary anti-corruption agency. It is a special prosecutor, distinct and independent from the national prosecution service under the Department of Justice, which is a part of the Executive Branch. The Ombudsman has the mandate to investigate and prosecute the criminal liability of public officials and employees involved in graft and corrupt practices. More proactively, it is also mandated to conduct a continuing campaign aimed at preventing graft and corruption. This is done mainly through information and re-education to instill proper moral values among government officials and employees.
In view of the present levels of corruption, the legal and organizational infrastructures has proved inadequate in effectively imbuing governance and the Civil Service with transparency and accountability.
The Transparency and Accountability Program of the Filipino People Under the Estrada Administration
In November last year, the World Bank issued a report on combating corruption in the Philippines, recommending a 9-point approach: (1) Reducing opportunities for corruption through policy reforms and deregulation, (2) Reforming campaign finance, (3) Increasing public oversight of government and transparency in its operations, (4) Reforming the budget process, (5) Improving meritocracy in the civil service, (6) Targeting selected departments and agencies, (7) Enhancing sanctions for corrupt and illegal behaviors, (8) Developing partnerships with the private sector, (9) Supporting judicial reform.
Comprehensive Anti-Corruption Program
In response to the World Bank report, President Estrada ordered the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) to come up with an anti-corruption program. Studying the Philippine case carefully and undertaking multisectoral consultations, the DAP formulated what might be considered a civil society-oriented program for transparency and accountability in the Civil Service.
DAP identified the following conditions for the success of the program: (1) Strong leadership and management, (2) a multi-sectoral advisory group, (3) a sequenced action program of priorities chosen from 9-pt anti-corruption strategy, (4) Immediate launching of programs in priority agencies, (5) Upgrading capacity of anti-corruption institutions, (6) Launching joint intergovernmental and inter-institutional efforts, (7) Seeking donor assistance for the government's anti-corruption program.
The following elements were identified as crucial to the program: (1) Make corruption a high-risk activity, (2) Increase certainty the corrupt are caught and convicted, (3) Shift from penalty-based to prevention-based approach, (4) Use partnerships, (5) Obtain commitment of top political leadership, (6) Enlist internal reformers, (7) Go for a comprehensive strategy, (8) Use supply-side measures, (9) Selectively adopt best practices, (10) Consider the cultural dimension, and (11) Maintain an "open architecture".
The criteria for prioritizing activities under the program are (1) Action can be done immediately, (2) Visibility and impact of results, (3) Presence of change sponsors, (4) Responsiveness to wide public clamor, (5) High return on the reform efforts, and (6) Contribution to increase in government resources.
The vision of the program was: A graft-free and corruption intolerant society. The goals were (1) efficient collection and use of public funds and (2) an efficient bureaucracy and accountable civil service.
Results were targeted in five areas: (1) Streamlining government transactions (through transaction re-engineering, information feed-forward, and public service accountability measures), (2) Enforcing anti-corruption laws and policies (by enhancing the administration of justice, and improving executive and legislative branch processes), (3) Promoting Integrity in the Civil Service (through vanguards of public service and integrity, improving the compensation and rewards system, and integrity-building measures), (4) Mobilizing Citizens Against Corruption (by mobilizing public participation, anti-corruption enculturation, anti-corruption IEC), and (5) Detecting Corruption and Prosecuting Corrupt officials and employees (by policy reform, strengthening anti-corruption agencies, and sustaining the anti-corruption effort).
The Jumpstart Program
The launching of such a comprehensive program needs a strategic "jumpstart" to generate quick success and mobilize wider and longer term support. Based on a careful reading of the dynamics of bureaucratic and social change in the Philippines, the DAP program recommended the following:
(1) Key Appointments Watch: Establishment of a transparent and participatory process for generating nominees for Presidential appointments in critical government offices (such as the Constitutional and regulatory bodies);
(2) Random Lifestyle Checks: Conduct of random checks on the lifestyle and compensation packages of public officials;
(3) Fast Track High Profile Cases: Mobilization of investigative and prosecutorial resources for pursuing graft and corruption cases;
(4) Open Public Documents: Full disclosure of public documents such as budget documents, financial reports, government contracts, proceedings of public hearings, etc.;
(5) Citizen Charters: Publication by government agencies of citizen guidebooks on how to access government goods and services;
(6) Transaction Re-engineering: Simplification and streamlining of processes and procedures for availing public goods and services;
(7) Report Card System: Periodic measurement of public satisfaction with the delivery and availment of public goods and services;
(8) Civil Society Watchdogs: Utilization of civil society organizations as partners of government agencies in advocating for improvements in organizational and individual integrity as well as ensuring transparency;
(9) Integrity Pacts: Entry into "integrity pacts" between public offices and private firms to eliminate environments conducive to and courting bribery, price-fixing and non-transparent procurement practices; and
(10) Anti-corruption Legislative Agenda: Identification and pursuit of anti-graft and –corruption legislative agenda.
There have been continuing efforts to ensure professional standards, transparency, and accountability in the Civil Service under all the Presidents since independence in 1946.
The Marcos Regime (1965-1986) goes down in history as one of the most corrupt regimes in the history of the world. But the Philippines has also demonstrated its capacity for immense self-renewal. The People Power Revolt of 1986 has reverberated across the world, giving impetus to various democratic movements.