MANILA, Philippines—To ensure that anti-corruption efforts would continue beyond 2010, the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC) is training new graftbusters and institutionalizing a career program under its Graduate Certificate Course in Corruption Prevention.

A second batch of 26 scholars from 15 government agencies are now training under the program and are due to complete it in March, PAGC Chair Constancia de Guzman said in a statement.

The course was conceptualized by the Development Academy of the Philippines on the request of the PAGC, which perfected the program based on inputs from previous scholars and lessons learned from last year’s pilot run.

The scholars shall earn masteral units after completion of the course. For their thesis, they will design and implement a Corruption Prevention Action Project in their respective government agencies within the curriculum period.

“The [project] should focus on at least one area in the scholar’s agency that is vulnerable to corruption and must include a reform initiative that fully addresses the problem,” De Guzman said.

The PAGC is working on an agreement with the Association of Schools of Public Administrations in the Philippines for the inclusion of the antigraft course in the curriculums of its members.

De Guzman said the tie-up would “ensure the program’s nationwide implementation and sustainability even beyond the expiration of the PAGC’s term in 2010.”

At the same time, the PAGC is studying the creation of a plantilla position for a “corruption prevention specialist” in every government agency, with the completion of the course as a basic requirement.