Many countries across Asia face the problem of corruption, which poses a massive drain on state budgets and deters foreign investment. The Philippines, rated as one of the worst offenders, has turned for help to one of the region's best.
Tony Kwok Wan-mai, who helped clean up graft-ridden Hong Kong and make it a model of clean administration, has been hired as a special advisor on anti-corruption issues to President Gloria Arroyo.
Manila bureau chief Karl Wilson meets the top graft buster and finds him optimistic in the face of what many see as a near-impossible mission.
Leaning back in his Philippine government - issued swivel chair, Tony Kwok Wan-Mai ponders the question for a few seconds. Hands clasped under his chin, he leans forward and almost in a whisper says: "So, some people think fighting corruption in the Philippines is like being handed a poisoned chalice, do they? Well, I guess they haven't been to Nigeria then." His dry sense of humour breaks the ice and he begins to relax, sipping Chinese tea.
With eyeglasses, casually dressed in an open-neck shirt and sports jacket, he looks more like an academic than one of Asia's leading crime fighters. But that's the way the 58-year-old former deputy commissioner and head of operations for Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) likes it.
Appointed in May by Philippine President Gloria Arroyo to be her special advisor on anti-corruption, Kwok is under no illusion about the job ahead of him in a country where corruption is viewed as a low-risk, high-return crime.
The United Nations Development Programme last year estimated that 1.8 billion dollars, about 13 percent of the country's annual budget, is lost to corruption every year.
A similar figure came from the World Bank in a study five years ago. It estimated that between 1980 and 2000 the Philippine's lost 48 billion dollars due to graft.
US investment bank Morgan Stanley calculated that the country had been milked of 204 billion dollars between 1965, when the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos came to power and institutionalised corruption, and 2001. It was known then as "crony capitalism," limited largely to Marcos and his associates. Now, corruption has spread to every aspect of life.
Most companies put aside 22 percent of the cost of a government project just to pay bribes, a survey by the Social Weather Stations polling group found after questioning 700 managers across the country.
Arroyo declared war on corruption when she appointed Kwok, saying:
"The winds of change are blowing in the Philippines." She says she is confident that, with Kwok's help, she can win the battle within the next three to four years. Yet Arroyo herself is facing impeachment over claims that she cheated in last year's presidential election and that members of her immediate family have been taking bribes from organisers of an illegal gambling racket.
Kwok's war-room is a sparsely furnished, windowless office tucked away on the ground floor of the Office of the Ombudsman in Manila's Quezon City district.
With its cream walls and bright ceiling lights it looks more like an interrogation room than an office dedicated to fighting graft. It is a far cry from the plush surroundings he had grown accustomed to during his days with the ICAC in Hong Kong.
Even the Office of the Ombudsman building, an austere-looking three storey pink structure with white trim and grand columns, looks strangely out of place surrounded by shabby squatter camps. But as far as Kwok is concerned, surroundings are not important. It is the "war" effort that counts.
'Hong Kong is the textbook example'
Hong Kong's war on corruption in the 1960s and 70s lasted seven years, he says. That fight had the will of the British colonial administration, a newly formed ICAC and a legal system free to prosecute and bring convictions.
Kwok says the Philippines should not be any different.
"Hong Kong is the textbook example of what can be done in the fight against corruption. It's not easy but it can be done. "There is no shortage of political will to fight corruption here in the Philippines. From the president down to her cabinet ministers and heads of government departments, you have the will. Ordinary Filipinos are fed up with it as well."
Kwok speaks with an almost evangelical enthusiasm for his mission, but others fear he is doomed to fail.
"Comparing the Philippines to Hong Kong is just ludicrous," one diplomat said.
"Hong Kong was ruled by the British and had the rule of law. What do you have here? You have a group of rich families and vested interests looking after one another ... Everyone is on the take and that's just the way it is."
Kwok concedes that political will alone is not enough to fight corruption.
"You must have a legal system that is prepared to take the cases on, process them quickly and see that wrongdoers are jailed.
"There has been no prominent person jailed for corruption in this country, not one," he says.
Even in Indonesia, which a survey of foreign businessmen ranked as the most corrupt country in Asia after the Philippines, top officials have been charged and jailed on graft charges. The head of the country's election commission was recently charged, a former trade minister just began a jail term, and the governor of Aceh province was hauled from his hospital bed to serve a 10-year sentence for corruption.
A study by the Philippine Supreme Court found that it takes almost seven years for a case to go through the Sandiganbayan, the country's anti-graft court.
"That's got to be some kind of world record," says Kwok For Kwok, used to the efficiency of the Hong Kong legal system where most corruption cases are dealt with in a year or less, the Philippine legal system will be his biggest obstacle to ending payoffs and kickbacks.
"Unless you have an efficient court system where corruption cases can be tried and dealt with easily and corrupt people sentenced promptly, it makes the war on corruption difficult to fight ... very difficult," he says.
Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo, with whom Kwok works closely, sees the country's legal system as hindering their efforts.
There are moves in Congress to improve the efficiency of the anti-graft court, where there is said to be a backlog of about 10,000 cases going back decades and only 15 justices to hear them. Most people brought before the court escape conviction.
'THE PLACE WAS ROTTEN FROM TOP TO BOTTOM'
"This country may be bad but you should have been in Hong Kong during the 1960s and 70s... the place was rotten from top to bottom," he says.
A customs officer since 1966, Kwok had a front row seat on the payoffs plague that had broken out in the colony. No ordinary lawman, he wanted to fight corruption and found the customs service too restrictive.
ICAC offered a bigger challenge, and the right outlet for his passion to fight the crime. It was staffed mostly with former policemen from Britain but Kwok joined in 1975 as one of the few local Chinese recruits.
His ability and dedication to the job saw him stand out and he quickly rose through the ranks to became the first local ICAC officer appointed deputy commissioner and head of operations in 1996. It was a time of massive change in the colony. "The government, while maintaining social order, delivered the bare essentials but could not satisfy the insatiable needs of the colony's exploding population.
"It opened the door to corruption at all levels where people obtained the things they needed through the back door. Corruption became an accepted fact of life," he says.
"If your house or building was on fire, the fire brigade would arrive and ask you how much to put the fire out. It sounds like a joke now but it was true."
Police turned a blind eye to crimes including drugs and gambling, he says.
"The whole social fabric had started to fall apart when the public said: 'Enough is enough.'
"The colonial administration declared war on corruption. It was just like a scene out of that American television show 'The Untouchables' where Eliot Ness took on the country's biggest gangster Al Capone." He smiles when he recalls the 6:00 am knock.
"That's when we would raid someone's house or flat. Even the bad guys needed sleep. The ICAC thought 6:00 am was a good time to call. Yes, most of them were in bed when the door caved in. We would arrest them, cart them off and search the premises. We usually got what we wanted."
The years of crime-fighting do not seem to have taken their toll on Kwok. He does not look like a man in his late 50s, though his short black hair has a slight touch of gray. Playing squash keeps him fit, and he is also a keen scuba diver.
His three daughters have gone on to professional and academic success. One is an accountant, another is at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, and another studies veterinary science in Sydney.
He found time to raise his daughters but for Kwok, who retired in 2002, the ICAC was not just a job.
"I saw it as my mission in life," he says.
'Where do we start?'
Although he has been out of the mainstream for nearly three years Kwok's services are in heavy demand throughout the region, including China where he has spent a great deal of his time advising provincial governments on how to fight corruption.
Last year he was invited by the World Bank to Nigeria to help set up a Strategic Planning Workshop to fight corruption in the West African nation, which he says poses a huge challenge for graft fighters. He finds the Philippines a challenge, but not an impossible one. "When the president asked for my help she said: 'Tony, where do we start? ' "
"1 simply told her you have to be serious about wanting to fight corruption and the anti-corruption agencies, such as the Office of the Ombudsman, must have the tools to fight.
"The anti-corruption court has to be strengthened to process and convict graft cases. Kwok declines to reveal his salary, saying:
"Money is not an issue for me."
Already, with the help of 3.7 million dollars in funding from the European Union, he has established an anti-corruption drive in 16 key government offices.
Kwok says the fight against corruption in the Philippines will be based on a three-pronged campaign - prevention, education and deterrence.
"The Ombudsman is totally independent here, more so than in Hong Kong. The government recently put more resources into the Office of the Ombudsman that is the front line in the corruption fight in this country.
"By the end of next year the number of investigators will have grown from a handful to 200. That is real progress," he said.
It is at least a start. And Kwok, the passionate crime fighter, believes it will not be the end.
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