Mapping a culture of integrity

May I share with you certain excerpts of a speech that I delivered during the Management Association of the Philippines (“MAP”) general membership meeting last July 26, 2011 on “PCGG’s Role in MAPping a Culture of Integrity.”

According to Fr. Roque Ferriols, SJ, in many ways, the Filipino phenomenological experience of “integrity” corresponds with the Greek conception — that is, beyond being used to signify truthfulness and being morally upright, it refers to the state of being “whole.” This is why, according to the good priest, a person who lacks integrity is one who experiences him or herself as being “scattered” — or in the vernacular, “kalat.”

In an ideal world, our institutions would have corresponding systems that protect them from corruption, aside and apart from our civil servants’ own ethical and moral compass. Such, sadly, is not the case.

It is through this lens that I share with you, some thoughts on our efforts of the past 10 months to keep together and whole a Commission that was in a state of dis-repair.

Managing expectations: Mapping  the commission’s context

Many of us know how, coming out of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, Executive Order No. 1 creating the Presidential Commission on Good Government was lauded as revolutionary and, at the time, radical.

But the integrity and fortitude of its birth, makes more tragic the present image of the Commission, because, in truth, aside from the few flashes of brilliance that resonate to the nobility of its name — several golden opportunities had been lost with the passage of time.

Often, the advocates in the promotion of a “good government” soon bore a striking resemblance to those they sought to fight. Perhaps, Nietzsche was correct when he cautioned that when you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you.

Delivering results: Settings targets and mapping action

Given this context, it is obvious that one could not go about this “mission impossible” alone. If integrity is about keeping it together, then it is just as important to bring together persons of like minds towards the same cause. And just as assembling a team is important to foster integrity, collaborations further it by inviting others who will keep watch and ensure that ethical progress is made.

Taking advantage of the honeymoon that our new team was afforded, we went on to identify the issues in an iterative process: acting on the immediate concerns, but always with a big picture view.

Throughout this process, it was essential that we communicate our efforts to the public in order to invite their attention, as a means to further reinforce our commitment. In this regard, we re-designed and updated our web site, and prepared a full report of our first 100 days in office.

This Report includes the following noteworthy facts: 1) from 1986 to 2010, our Commission has recovered nearly P93 billion versus expenses of approximately P5 billion. This amount has been remitted for utilization in the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program: to construct farm-to-market roads, build bridges and irrigation facilities, establish schools, and provide scholarships, among others.

In addition, the Commission has, likewise, transferred over 3,000 hectares of agricultural lands to the Department of Agrarian Reform — which lands were, in turn, distributed to legitimate farmer-beneficiaries.

Our Commission has also disclosed what remains at stake: the fact that the 291 cases pending in various courts represent a potential recovery of over P200 billion — provided, of course, that these efforts prove successful.

It is within this configuration that I make the following recommendations, premised upon the fact that the fight against corruption is not a purely legal one.

As we all know, rational people respond to incentives. And so, before we even get to talking about getting people to do the right things, we need to get the right people for the right jobs. We need to abandon the mindset that the government is the dumping ground for the unqualified and unemployed. Rather, we must professionalize the bureaucracy and people it with professionals, through a clear selection process, where career progress is charted through merit (and not favoritism). This is the only way that we can have a real bureaucracy that is insulated from politics.

The money is there — unfortunately, it exists under the table. Instead of fueling the rent-seeking ways, we need to channel these funds legitimately through a competitive salary structure that is commensurate to the duties and responsibilities and assumption of physical and reputational risk of our public officers. After all, while money talks, treating people right talks louder.

With rational incentives, we can be reasonable and rigid with our demands. Clearer standards limit discretion, while increasing transparency and accountability. With an improvement in the latter, we can make stronger demands and impose swift consequences for inaction or inefficiency.

Our Commission has actively sought and invited the attention of the media and the general public as a means to monitor its own progress. Most people behave better, when others are looking — presumably, the same can be said of the people in government. And this path, we tread, even at the risk, sometimes, of harsh and unfair criticism.

Also, as we have seen from our experience, collaboration with other institutional partners — in our case, not just government agencies, but development partners (such as USAID, American Bar Association, and Friedrich Naumann Foundation) is an important way to ensure effective progress and monitoring. Indeed, the more decent partners that you have, the less likely it is that “co-optation” can take place.

We must continue to build upon the good governance pillars of transparency and accountability by promoting private sector “voice and participation.” New social media — Facebook, Twitter, or the more “traditional” email — allows the government to be more accessible to the people. What is lacking, however, is a centralized system by which communication can be channeled to the responsible government agencies concerned. A directory, just as we have posted on our web site, functions not just as a listing of persons, but as a way by which any person can directly communicate with any of us in the Commission.

Finally, if these efforts are to succeed, the best way to support them in a sustainable manner is to educate the youth and encourage “youth leadership.” Recognizing this, we have sought, in our own ways, to respond to this challenge. During the Commission’s 25th anniversary, last February, we organized an exhibit documenting the excesses and recoveries of the past, and we posed the challenge of good governance to our post-People Power youth. Since then, we have taken this exhibit on an ongoing roadshow — a veritable journey of “good governance” — through our partner-universities all across the country.

Just as, in the beginning, I sought to manage your expectations, in closing I ground them in realistic ones: bringing us back to the situation of our collective fight against corruption. It is an ongoing challenge that will, certainly, continue beyond this administration. Nevertheless, I trust that we, by situating ourselves in and with integrity, will continue to fight that good fight for good governance.