Integrity begins at the top

At its core, a company’s leadership bears the ultimate responsibility for upholding Integrity and banishing corruption from its corporate culture. And as experience in the now low-corruption countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong have shown, the top is the most effective starting point for cultivating a culture of integrity, accepting the fact that clean business is good business.

Hong Kong’s famed corruption fighter, Tony Kwok, emphasized that any anti-corruption campaign starts with ethical leadership. “The Chief Executive should publicly pledge their commitment to adopt institutional integrity by issuing a public statement on business ethics, values and zero tolerance,” Kwok pointed out.

Kwok, an Anti-Corruption Consultant and former Head of Operations, Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC), spoke some time ago before the Integrity Initiative about his first-hand experience in battling corruption at the highest levels.Kwok urged the Philippines’ business sector to begin its fight against corruption by taking the “Integrity Pledge” developed by the Integrity Initiative.

Beginning with the preamble, “We will prohibit bribery in any form in all activities under our control . . . ,” the Integrity Pledgeconsists of a list of commitments aimed at fostering ethical, clean, and transparent business transactions throughout the Philippines.It commits signatories to support the Integrity Initiative that intends to create fair market conditions, transparency in business transactions and ensure good corporate governance.

The Integrity Initiative, Inc., being a multi-sectoral organization, seeks to institutionalize integrity standards among various sectors of society: business, national and local government, the judiciary, academe, youth, civil society, church and media. 

While corruption tops the agenda, the Integrity Initiative addresses issues like ‘long-term sustainability over short-term gain, paying the right taxes, no smuggling and respecting labor laws’ and the environment.

The Integrity Initiative aims to sign up as many reputable corporations as possible and collectively agree on a “Unified Code of Conduct” and on control measures to ensure integrity and transparency in business transactions. While we succeeded until now to obtain about 3,000 signatories, it must be added that our aim until the end of this year is 10,000! All companies in Cebu are encouraged to sign NOW and create ‘Integrity Nation Now’ jointly with us in the Integrity Initiative.

Given this challenge, let’s focus a bit more about the successful vision of Mr. Kwok: He clearly outlined that the political for change in fighting corruption is a necessity. Kwok focused in his talk on the role of senior managersin fighting corruption.

“The most critical success factor for combating corruption is top political will,” he emphasized. Companies must lead in the fight against corruption because there has been a change in the complexion of corruption in high places. He said Hong Kong’s ICAC before used to report that 70 percent of its corruption investigations focused on government and 30 percent on the business sector.

“Now, that’s 50 percent on the business sector and 50 percent on the government,” he noted. He proposed Filipino companies develop an “Institutional Integrity Action Plan” based on four pillars: Ethical Leadership, Staff Integrity, Systems Integrity and Monitoring & Deterrence.

Of these four, ethical leadership beginning at the very top remains paramount. Kwok described Ethical Leadership as one having integrity; one with a respect for human rights; one that treats employees equally and one that adheres to the rule of law.

In Kwok’s definition, Integrity is honesty; selflessness (in the sense that a decision is based on public/institution interest and not on private interest); objectivity (a decision is based on merit); transparency (no under-the-table deals) and accountability (those who break the law must pay the price).

Ultimately, the Integrity Initiative hopes to build trust in government, a more equitable society and fair market conditions. This will result in improved competitiveness and increased business confidence, which will be evident with the increase in domestic and foreign investments, and more employment generated for Filipinos. It will provide better services and products to every Filipino.

In order to succeed, more sectors of society have to get involved, such as the court system (we need convictions), academe, civil society and – above all – the youth.