President Gloria Arroyo. Photo: R. Mailo OPS-NIB Philippine government officials live in big houses. That simple statement stands as a testament to the corruptness and the lack of ethics that many people in government currently exhibit. Be they Senators, Congressmen, governors, mayors, judges, cabinet secretaries, GMA, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyoor lowly Department clerks. Hardly anything gets done in the Philippines without "grease money," and, as many foreigners and locals alike have learned, things come to a grinding halt once that "greasing" stops. Doing business of any kind in the Philippines, has thus become so confusing and esoteric that most foreign companies simply bypass the country preferring to do business with other Asian countries instead. However, if the Philippines is ever to regain its stature as a leader in Southeast Asia, drastic measures need to be taken to reduce, if not eliminate this cancer of graft and corruption that seems to have metastasized, to even the most far-flung regions of the country. On August of last year, the Arroyo Administration, in a meeting of the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council, Sec. Rigoberto D. Tiglao, President Arroyo's Chief-of-Staff noted Hong Kong's highly successful program to stamp out corruption in government. Based on the premise that the easiest way to prosecute the corrupt, is to use the lifestyle check. As explained by to Sec. Tiglao, "prosecuting an instance of actual corruption is difficult because of the need to get the briber and build up a case of a single incident. In contrast, the lifestyle check approach simply involves proving that the wealth of a particular official does not correspond to his Statement of Assets and Liabilities." Thirty years ago Hong Kong had the reputation of being one of the most corrupt countries in Asia. In fact according to Tiglao, the word “tong” was derived from the HK Tong Gangs who regularly extorted money from Hong Kong residents and businesses. Today however, Transparency International ranks Hong Kong as the second least corrupt country in Asia. How did this transformation come about? The most important factor in the Hong Kong transformation was the establishment in 1974 of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). Adequately funded and staffed, the ICAC went about doing lifestyle checks on public servants and then turning over the results of those investigations that warranted prosecution to their Department of Justice. The Philippines should follow Honk Kong's lead, as have Australia and Korea who now have ICAC-like commissions of their own. But in order to be successful, we Filipinos should be resolute in this endeavor. Deposed president Joseph Estrada, whose gaudy mansions and excessively lavish lifestyle for himself and his mistresses were all well documented, still has to be tried and sentenced. While the Arroyo Administration is indeed making strides in bringing to light corrupt public officials via lifestyle checks, we need to see a flurry of convictions with the guilty placed behind bars before we start seeing a decline in the overall level of corruption in the country. Published 2005