Frank Serpico, Daniel Ellsberg, Coleen Rowley; These people to name a few of the famous whistleblowers in the world. Whistleblower? A person working within an organization who reports misconduct. He / she may be a current or past employee, and the misconduct may be ongoing at the time of the report or may have taken place in the past. In most cases, the misconduct reported by the whistleblower violates a law that threatens the public in one way or another, though any form of misconduct may be reported. The emergence of whistleblowers if and only if there is anomaly in a certain organization that he / she belong to.
Mostly, the major factor why there is whistleblowers because of corruption. Corruption is both a major cause and a result of poverty around the world. It occurs at all levels of society, from local and national governments, civil society, judiciary functions, large and small businesses, military and other services and so on. It most affects the poorest, whether in rich or poor nations.
In the Philippine context, Corruption is an act of dishonesty or abusive of position of trust which can be classified as Conflict of Interest, Bribery, Illegal Gratuities and Economic Extortion. Based on the statistics, 80% comes from the internal perpetuators while the remaining 20% are from the external perpetuator. As of 2007, Philippines ranked 8th all over the world. Same as the status for Asian countries, Philippines tops at 2006. For the past 7 years there is an increasing trend of the status of how rampant corruption in the country.
As of March 19, 2009, Pulse Asia conducted a survey about the most corrupt government agencies in the Philippines. Arrange in ascending order: Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), Department of Agriculture, Philippine National Police (PNP) and top notch the survey is the Department of Public Works.
Despite of the tremendous effort for fighting corruption, it is inevitable, Temptations are everywhere, and this may be one good reason why people commit to corrupt. Goodness is innate to us, is such that there are certain situations that forces us to be misled our principles. Furthermore, many reasons why people steal. The top 5 reasons are as follows: gambling, drugs and alcohol, extra marital affair, living beyond means and of course the primary needs / basic needs.
The key to fight corruption is not on a certain person hence it is the cooperation of all citizens to provoke how serious we are in halting the corruption in the government. Small things can make a big change. Starting at one’s self can create difference. Through hotline tips fighting corruption will be like a piece of cake. As for the statistics, 45% of 500 relies on hotline tips where sources can be; employees, customers, anonymous persons, vendors and even competitors.
Examples are from New Jersey, USA. There is a designated number to call whenever crime stoppers wants to report on criminals but not sacrificing the confidentiality of the whistleblower. In Philippines, there are selected digits to call whenever there are anomalies that need to be reported. For emergency or stop the use of illegal drugs, just dial 117 numbers. Furthermore, complainant’s identity will be under security / privacy.
Truth Verifier System, Inc. is the company that pioneer in lie detector test in the Philippines wherein giving security services to the government and private sector. It was founded in May 1966 and is now on its 45th year of quality service. A business partnership with Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) Chandler F. Willliams, Capt. Conrado Dumlao and Dr. Alcyone Thor Reyes. The company is a member of American Polygraph Association, American Society of Industrial Security, International Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, and International Association of Professional Investigators & Detectives.
The company gives seminars in detecting fraud in the workplace all over the Philippines. Most of the seminar attendees are accountants, auditor, security, administration managers, lawyers, and business from different company.
TVSI also offers in-house seminars and detective courses. For more details, please log on to www.truthverifier.com or call us at +632 634-5929 and +632 6347571.
Jennifer B. Mejia
Truth Verifier System, Inc.
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