PAGC intensifying integrity development campaign

MANILA, Philippines - The Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) is shifting the government-wide integrity development drive to high gear, vigorously providing various agencies with intensive briefing and assistance in its implementation.

PAGC chief Secretary Constancia de Guzman said the briefings would help ensure the adoption and effective implementation of the Integrity Development Action Plan (IDAP), the national anti-corruption framework for all departments of the executive branch and their regional and attached agencies.

Anchored on Chapter 21 of the government’s Medium Term Philippine Development Plan, the IDAP measures “embody the multi-pronged strategy in fighting corruption through prevention, deterrence, education and multisectoral involvement and public support,” De Guzman said.

She said the number of IDAP briefings and consultation meetings being conducted by the PAGC had already reached 136 as of last May 21 since the integrity development campaign began in 2005.

She said the number does not include the IDAP briefings conducted by several Cabinet departments themselves for their attached agencies and regional offices.  

“These departments had been given IDAP trainings by the PAGC and were its partner agencies. Since 2005, the number of government agencies implementing the IDAP as PAGC’s partners rose from 39 to 156 in 2008,” she added.

De Guzman said the conduct of IDAP briefings was further intensified beginning last May 14 when all agencies under the executive branch started implementing President Arroyo’s Administrative Order 255 on “moral renewal in government.”

“Thus, the IDAP campaign is now focused on helping the various government offices polish and effectively implement their respective Moral Renewal Action Plans (MRAPs),” she said.

These agency-specific MRAPs were formulated individually by the government offices immediately after a national workshop on AO 255 was conducted by the PAGC in Malacañang last March 5.

The workshop produced 10 core anti-graft measures that the government agencies later adopted in formulating their own MRAPs.