_{AT APEC:}

RP ANTI-CORRUPTION REFORMS HIGHLIGHTED; 

INTENSIFIED INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION URGED

07 September 2007 SYDNEY , AUSTRALIA —Underscoring the continuing importance of national and international anti-corruption efforts for sustained growth and development, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo called on Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) members to intensify cooperation against graft and corruption.

At the APEC Plenary Meeting here, Secretary Romulo addressed other Foreign Ministers and stressed the cost of corruption on economies.

“Corruption is theft.  It burdens our economies.  It despoils our peoples.  It impedes our progress.  The World Bank estimates that bribery alone worldwide costs national economies US$1 trillion every year,” Secretary Romulo emphasized during the meeting.

Secretary Romulo expressed the Philippines ’ support for “building institutional foundations” among APEC members to “prevent corruption before it occurs,” and stressed that “with the right tools and information-sharing, we can identify vulnerabilities in our private and public systems that allow or condone corruption.”

In his address during the Plenary Meeting, Secretary Romulo highlighted Philippine anti-corruption strategies that include punitive, preventive, informational and structural approaches.

“With clear political will, with better transparency and with stronger enforcement, our goal is to promote a culture of good governance to increase investment, to improve entrepreneurship, to accelerate job and wealth creation and to save trillions of dollars for the benefit of our peoples and in health, education and in employment,” Secretary Romulo said in the Meeting.

Among other efforts, Secretary Romulo identified continuing lifestyle checks, the strengthening of the Office of the Ombudsman’s investigative capacity; procurement reforms, transparency in government procedures, procurements and projects, the enactment of the “Whistle-blower Law;” social reforms with media and civic society support; and bureaucracy reform, better recruitment and management and capacity building for the government workforce.

“The Philippines has taken a strong stand against corruption.  Through the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), we support international cooperation to curb this scourge,” Romulo said during the Meeting.

Secretary Romulo also recognized the progress made at APEC which, in a span of three years, has “moved beyond dialogue to action, with specific and practical initiatives to fight corruption.”

Secretary Romulo cited that in 2006, the Philippines hosted APEC’s Workshop on Fighting Corruption and Ensuring Transparency.

Secretary Romulo reaffirmed the importance of making progress in the implementation of the “Santiago Commitment to fight Corruption and Ensure Transparency,” which was endorsed by APEC leaders in 2004 in Chile .

Under the Santiago commitment, the key areas for APEC corruption include: denying safe haven for the corrupt and their assets; concluding mutual legal assistance and extradition agreements; and, developing innovative training, targeted capacity-building and results-oriented technical assistance. END

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