When people do their laundry, some may just want to start with the dirtiest clothes.

With that in mind, antigraft experts from Asia have decided to launch an anticorruption center in the Philippines?one of the countries in the world where corruption is said to be most pervasive?that would train and educate civil servants and others in the virtues of plain, honest work.

?We are not picking on the Philippines ... We acknowledge that there are problems here but this is a good place to start,? Prof. Charles Sampford of the Institute of Ethics, Governance and Law, and of Griffith University in Australia said in a recent interview.

?It?s just like doing the laundry. Would you start with the cleanest clothes or the dirtiest? The most important thing is the Philippines wants to improve.?

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez last month led the signing of a memorandum of understanding paving the way for establishing a Center for Asian Integrity (CAI) in the Philippines.

The two other signatories were Sampford and Prof. Alex Brillantes, dean of the University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration and Governance.

The signing occurred during a multilateral meeting in Manila of ombudsmen from seven member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Decaying values

Described as a ?virtual academy,? the CAI would offer courses and training aimed at reforming a bureaucracy vulnerable to corruption and offer cures to the decaying values of public officials.

It is being touted as the first anticorruption center in Asia and organizers hope it would work wonders in the Philippines.

Based on the annual Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International released last year, the Philippines?with a 2.5 rating?ranks 131st out of the 180 nations that were studied.

The Philippines is classed with Iran, Libya, Nepal, Yemen, Burundi and Honduras.

The ?cleanest? countries, with a rating of 9.4, are Denmark, Finland and New Zealand, according to the study.

Gutierrez herself scored low in a 2007 survey on public satisfaction conducted by the poll group Social Weather Stations, with a mark of two (+2). The SWS said she was among those in government who got ?roughly neutral? public satisfaction ratings.

Vulnerable to corruption

The center will be involved in research and education centering on the moral stature of public servants and the systems that allow them to engage in shady dealings, Gutierrez told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Corruption can be attributed ?to the officials? not having the values and the proper knowledge about their duties,? Gutierrez said.

?Our system also makes it possible for officials to commit corruption. There is too much discretion given to them that they have the power to decide for an agency or department,? she added.

The center will try to make it difficult for public officials to abuse their powers, Gutierrez said.

It is to be funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation-Philippine Threshold Program through the Asia Foundation. It will be based both at the Office of the Ombudsman and the University of the Philippines.

Sampford was heavily involved in anticorruption reforms which inspired the German-based antigraft watchdog, Transparency International, to develop and promote the concept of ?national integrity system? to deal with corruption.

Anticorruption specialist Dr. Gabriella Quimson, who earned a doctorate in political science from the University of Queensland, Australia, said that compared to other countries plagued with corruption, the Philippines has ?cutting edge? antigraft mechanisms that would complement the center.

These include the system of lifestyle checks and the monitoring of the statement of assets and liabilities and net worth of civil servants, Quimson said.

The antigraft experts and the Office of the Ombudsman have agreed to incorporate in the CAI a research program that will examine corruption vulnerability within a government system and come up with mechanisms to improve it.

By improvement, the antigraft experts meant reforming the system so that government officials would have no elbow room to promote their personal interests.

Name of the game

Sampford said research was important to reforming the government because ?corruption is a knowledge-based industry.?

He also said that battling corruption ?is not just a matter of writing laws, but getting the right laws and getting the right ethical standards, improving the mechanisms in prosecutions.?

?The main game is to structure public institutions so that the interest of the civil servants is to further the public good.

Supplementing the research are UP-accredited ?integrity courses? which will be offered to public servants and integrated to the curriculum of partner schools nationwide.

Sampford said the center would train civil servants to do their jobs better??what it is to be a good prosecutor, farmer, teacher, manager, engineer, etc.?

They will be so efficiently trained that in the long run, the country should see fewer government officials haled to courts for graft and corruption, he said.

?Governance reform is not just about a good policy or a good institution. You need people to build the system,? Sampford stressed.