WHEREAS, the Constitution provides that œPublic office is a public trust. Public officers and employees shall serve with the highest degree of responsibility, integrity, loyalty and efficiency and shall remain accountable to the people. 

WHEREAS, the Civil Service Commission, the Career Executive Service Board, the Commission on Audit and the Tanodbayan/Sandiganbayan are committed to seeing that this constitutional provision is upheld;

WHEREAS, despite the preventive, control and punitive measures taken by the government, principally through these four agencies, there are reports of alleged graft and corruption, red tape and inefficiency in various levels and areas of government activity;

WHEREAS, these stories and rumors constitute a serious barrier to the proper appreciation of the objectives and purposes of national development programs by the people, thus adding tremendous cost to overcoming harmful effects of their skepticism and/or outright resistance to the implementation of these programs;

WHEREAS, when these stories become reality the added cost to government comes high in terms of immediate, quantifiable losses due to abuse or misappropriation of government resources, and inestimable damage to the government ™s efforts to achieve unity of purpose and to win the people ™s commitment to programs intended for their benefit;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, FERDINAND E. MARCOS, President of the Philippines, do hereby order the Civil Service Commission, the Career Executive Service Board, the Commission on Audit, the Tanodbayan/Sandiganbayan and the President ™s Center for Special Studies to designate a representative each from among their key officials to constitute an ad hoc study group for the purpose of

- making a realistic assessment of the extent and nature, the elements and dimensions of the total problem of graft, corruption, red tape and inefficiency;

- identifying contributory factors within the control of government;

- recommending

(a) remedies and preventive measures that can be instituted immediately or within a short period and considering available resources of existing government agencies;

(b) a longer range rehabilitation program that will contain, replace and eventually eliminate the undesirable elements in the service; and

(c) priorities for the testing and application of recommended remedial or corrective measures, clearly spelling out coordination requirements necessary between control agencies and agencies affected.

The President ™s Center for Special Studies shall serve as the secretariat and coordinating agency of this group which is hereby empowered to call upon the assistance of any officer or employee and any office or agency of the government to assist it in its work.

The group shall be constituted within two weeks from receipt of this order, and within thirty (30) days, submit a work program; within six (6) months submit recommendations for remedial measures, and within one (1) year submit their recommendations for a long-range rehabilitation program.

Done in the City of Manila this 11th day of Sept. in the year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-One.


By the President:

(SGD.) JOAQUIN T. VENUS, JR.
Deputy Presidential Executive Assistant