The following is an excerpt on a talk to be delivered by the author to a group of “Integrity Facilitators” under The Integrity for Jobs (I4J) Project. This project focuses on the pilot development of integrity mechanisms and models of transparent and effective small business and investment registration and promotion procedures at selected local government units (LGUs), in cooperation with civil society, the business sector and decision makers at these LGUs.

This Program has the word INTEGRITY at its masthead. But what is INTEGRITY? We have many definitions of the word and people with such qualifications abound through the world’s literature.

My intent today is to share my thoughts on Integrity within the purview of Political Reforms and at the same time precipitate a discussion among ourselves to better refine our roles as ‘Integrity Facilitators’; tasked to perform a job in a particular way; under the aegis of the I4J program and asFellows of the 300 – the principal adherents of Centrist Democracy and disciples of a dogma built around the core value of human dignity.

I emphasize the latter part because of my particular preference toward a specific definition of Integrity which could be contemplated on two levels. The first is the personal ethical concept where integrity is a virtueandwhere an individual’s actions are based upon an “internally consistent framework of principles” based on a core of values. On this plane, integrity is a clear personal choice consistent with common standards like honesty, goodness, truthfulness, decency and honor. All these require personal and uncompromising commitment to these principles.

The ‘impersonal’ view refers to the wholeness and correctness of structures and institutions that must serve the aspirations and needs of society based on the collective values of the different cultures of a people – the Filipino.

Our mission as Fellows and facilitators of this project is to inculcate into selected local government structures workable ethical practices consistent with principles of good governance. Integrity here should be synonymous with the common good.

These configurations must involve the participation ofthe private & business sector, civil society & NGOs with the cooperation of the government bureaucracy within the local government units.  Within the lifetime of this project, we hope to create microcosms of successful cooperation that could be replicated in other local government units.

Having laid the simple predicate of our responsibilities as ‘Integrity practitioners”, let me project the enormity of our task by way ofashortdiscussion on the backdrop of the overall  political reforms we want done in this country; referring intermittently to current political realities.

The fate of any nation depends on its leadership and the strength and sustainability of its institutions. Leaders have a shelf-life. Institutions should not have one, but they need to be re-examined from time to time and if need be, re-engineered to conform to the flux of realities.

Leaders must in this regard exhibit the highest form of moral integrity. An ethical government is always the key to sustainable progress. Leaders must be honest. People expect nothing less;but leaders can’t hold the people to the same kind of expectations. This is the reason why we should have a working government with responsive institutions. At best, leaders should be the exemplars of integrity. Morality is all about this: do what is right, avoid what is wrong. The Golden Rule is clear: Do unto others what you want others do unto you.

The above ethics should apply to those who are in power. Government is not about prestige. It is a moral obligation. Yet, this is not theoperatingfactwe have had in our country.

I will not belabor the arguments that we have a dysfunctional democracy from the time the Americans left us this legacy. I will not also dwell at length on the causes of this dysfunction; foremost of which is the patronage politics practiced in this country for a good part of 400 hundred years. Suffice it to say that these discrepancies are simply the derivatives of still current practices already ingrained in our institutions.

Institutions are neither moral nor ethical per se. They are simply man-made mechanisms and their ‘ethos’ intrinsically dependent on the mortals that populate them. But the paradox of the lives of institutions is that they outlive the individual mortals that created them and the ‘institutional memory’ in some cases captures the personality of the collective and ingrained in the practices that eventually perpetuate these institutions.

Our small effort beginning today is an attempt for the Fellowship to provide the framework to put a dent to these age-old political institutional mal-practices and perhaps hope that we inject a certain sense of public good into these malfunctioning institutions.

I need not stress too that the only guarantee that the reforms we are meant to initiate will be sustainable are that our acts individually and collectively as members of the Fellowship are congruent to a framework of our core value.

This is our ultimate definition of INTEGRITY.