Sep. 10--The rule most Filipino officials holding the littlest bit of power live by is obviously "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!" Otherwise, why are petty graft and large-scale corruption so pervasive in this country?

There's news though that Ombudsman Merciditas Guttierez and Dean of the UP's National College of Public Administration and Governance Prof. Alex Brillantes are guided by a more positive slogan: "If you can't beat them, form a school against them!"

They've signed a memorandum of understanding with Australia's Griffith University, represented by Prof. Charles Sampford, to establish in the Philippines the Center for Asian Integrity (CAI), whose main function will be to do research on, and give education on ethics and other anti-corruption and integrity-building subjects to, government employees and officials.

The ultimate objective, if the mother institution at Griffith and the United Nations University (UNU) is to be the basis of our hopes, is to spread a culture of probity not only among Filipino public servants but also throughout Asia.

Institute for Ethics Governance and Law

The Institute for Ethics, Governance and Law (IEGL) is a joint initiative of the United Nations University, Griffith University and the Queensland University of Technology in association with the Australian National University. Established in 2004, the IEGL was proposed by the UNU--which is "a globally networked university" and the "engine house" of UN research--to fill "an important gap (ethics, governance and law) in its research and to fill its geographical lack of coverage in Oceania. Obviously, UNU, Griffith, Queensland and ANU are branching out to Asean and East Asia to widen their EIGL's reach where its services are sorely needed.

The Office of the Ombudsman in June 2006 said that from 2001 the government had lost P1.2 trillion to graft and corruption. The World Bank estimates that at least 40 percent of all Philippine government budgets go to the pockets of the corrupt.

The 2007 report of Transparency International gives the Philippines a rating of 2.5 and a ranking of 131st among 180 countries assessed in the Corruption Perceptions Index.

Other global assessments by respected anti-corruption bodies have also been giving the Philippines very low grades.