GOPAC ~ SEAPAC

The Manila Times

Anticorruption summit in Manila in April

March 11, 2005

Legislators from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) will converge in Manila on March 31 and April 1 to formally organize a regional anticorruption organization, Senator Edgardo J. Angara said Thursday.

Angara said the proposed Southeast Asian Parliamentarians Against Corruption (Seapac) would take a major role in fighting corruption in the region through legislation and advocacy work.

"This will be a great boost to the fight against corruption in the Asean region, especially to the Philippines, which has been ranked as the second most corrupt country in Asia by the Political and Economic Risj\k Consultancy Ltd.," he said.

Angara said the conference is also expected to ratify a United Nations Convention Against Corruption which was signed in 2003 because of the need for more effective legal instruments in fighting corruption on a global scale.

Parliamentarians from the region, according to Angara, would cooperate to track down and seize proceeds from graft and corruption practices.

"Even the effort to clean the political system of dirty money and corrupt election practices is within the scope of work defined by the UN Convention," Angara said.

He has filed a number of political reform bills meant to ban turncoatism and reduce the cost of elections and prevent political parties from accepting dirty or laundered money from gambling lords, drug traffickers and other members of crime syndicates.

Angara also sponsored the passage of the Government Procurement Act in Congress, which reformed the obsolete and graft-prone rules on public bidding and procurement of services and supplies.

GOPAC ~ SEAPAC