BACOLOD City – The General Alliance of Workers Association (GAWA) is calling anti-corruption advocates and likeminded individuals to campaign for the reactivation of the People’s Graftwatch in this city .
GAWA Secretary-General Wennie Sancho said the graft watch was formerly headed by the late Dr. Patricio Tan who achieved notable gains in combating graft and corruption in the government until the year 1990.
Graft watch served as a front desk in receiving and facilitating request for assistance, complaint, or reports of any anomalous or corrupt practices by referring these complaints to the Office of the Ombudsman in the Visayas.
It has also served as a Corruption Prevention Unit (CPU) that would broaden community participation by serving as the eyes and arms of the Ombudsman in closely monitoring critical and substantially funded projects or transactions in their respective areas of concern.
Sancho averred that corruption is a significant obstacle to good governance. It exists at a considerable scale and scope ranging from petty bribery to grand corruption.
“The Philippines have a long history of corruption, from embezzlement of public funds, graft and abuse of power by elected officials is very common. It is widely held that the problem of corruption is the singularly biggest systematic problem of our society. Corruption is part of the system, if not the system itself,” he claimed.
Sancho explained, generally, it signifies moral deterioration and decay in the sphere of government administration.
“It denotes perversion of integrity in the discharge of public duties. A white-collar crime committed to serve private ends,” he said.
The GAWA secretary-general added: “There is an urgent need to reactivate graft watch and other corruption prevention units before we will be swallowed by the specter of corruption and before all the values of society shall finally be crashed and everything is for sale, subjecting all of us to the indignities of life, particularly the poor and the oppressed.”/PN
