I admit, I’m still a bit hungover from Bangkok, so I was thrilled to see this photo from 14IACC’s Flickr:

I’m posting this because I’m there somewhere, obv. Click the photo to enlarge.

This was during the workshop on “Settling Foreign Bribery Cases: A Deterrent or a Dodge?” It was the first workshop I attended, on the first day. My notes about it span around 5 pages. Let me turn them into coherent prose, then I’ll share it with you.

I have one more video from Bangkok to post, but that could wait. Tomorrow, November 23, is the first anniversary of the Maguindanao Massacre. I’d probably write about it or offer a day of silence and mourning through this blog, but this is for sure: I will pray, and I will have hope.

(Cross-posted from our Ning website)

As one of the journalists for the GYAC, I worked with the Social Media Unit at the 14IACC:

I was asked to interview people for the “Corruption, Long Story Short” board. Basically, conference participants’ unique and personal take on corruption, in 2-3 sentences. What’s corruption for you? How does it affect you and how do you think it affects other people? What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word “corruption”? The answers I’ve gotten so far have been as interesting as they are varied. Somebody from the US State Department who has been fighting international corruption for 20 years commented on how the discourse about corruption and the actions to be taken against it have changed immensely over the years. The environment and avenues for discussions have definitely opened up, and this IACC and our GYAC network are evidence of that. A T.I. representative from Berlin, meanwhile, believes that corruption caused the deregulation of the financial industry in the US, which led to the big financial crisis. He said that these came from the subtle forms of corruption, like paying off regulators and lobbying. There was also a consensus about how corruption denies people very basic, fundamental rights like justice because corruption easily clouds and influences the judiciary in some countries like Lebanon, where my interviewee was from. And as we all know, corruption misappropriate/expropriate money that should go to government programs like infrastructure and health care, but corruption isn’t really just taking away our money, but more importantly our RIGHTS. Another interesting interview was with someone working with the Anti-Corruption Compliance Program of her company in Norway. It was very great to know that even the private sector is doing something in the global work against corruption. She believes that private enterprises really need to engrain anti-corruption practices in the ways they are run. These companies should also get their voices heard by communicating their stance against corruption and actively engaging in anti-corruption work! And finally, somebody from Maldives commented on how corruption has been seen as a niche and treated like it’s an isolated problem, when in fact it’s EVERYWHERE. She said the solution can be seen in what we’re doing here in IACC, which is introducing anti-corruption tools in as many fields as possible, like climate change, which affects the most vulnerable people.

(On the last day of the conference, somebody from the BBC liked the idea of the board – credits to Georg Neumann! – so much that he wanted to feature it somewhere, but he wanted the contact details of the interviewees, and alas I had only their names as they were very quick interviews.)

Well, first of all, Welcome to JosephMansilla.com v2.0, the design of which gave me quite the headache last night. Something happened on the second and last days of the IACC that made me ~reevaluate my life~ and it occurred to me that the website which I have been promoting to people through my business cards doesn’t really reflect my vision anymore. So here you go, the smarter, cleaner, and more straightforward brother of my old website.

Secondly, below is a video of the Welcome Cocktails (though it certainly went beyond my idea of ‘cocktails’) during the first night of the 14IACC. Though I have some criticisms for the people behind the conference, I gotta give them props for the marvelous hospitality. Among the parties they threw every night, this was the best one, at least in terms of overall grandiosity (every night was special though: second night wins for the food and drinks, third for the heartwarming/moving category courtesy of the Integrity Awards, and the last one was special because of the people I will never forget even when I have already forgotten everything I learned at the conference.)

The middle part of this video is off-kilter, but I like it that way. :P

Tonight I’ll be in Rockwell, we’re launching a book called Listen, which is about the young deaf community here in the Philippines. It’s pretty and touching and insightful, but don’t expect stellar writing. I’d still seriously buy it though even if I weren’t involved in it. :)

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So the organizers of the 14IACC posted a YOUTH CHALLENGE where they invited young people from the world over to upload a video in which they voice their anti-corruption messages to the world leaders who are attending the conference. I don’t know how many videos were submitted and received, but they were able to screen one video from a Vietnamese student during the closing plenary session.

Our Global Youth Anti-Corruption Network (GYAC-N) was the only official youth organization/delegation at the conference and so being the journalist representative of the Network, I decided to do the opposite by asking some participants of the conference for their message to the youth. Here’s the end product:

From Tom Quine, Manager of Online Communications at Transparency International Berlin:

“No matter what career you choose in your life, you can build a struggle for social justice into that career, doesn’t matter if you’re an accountant, a lawyer, a doctor, no matter what, you can put social justice in there … If you do that, if you fight for social justice in your career, then you can sleep easy at night.”

On the last day of the conference, a Bangkok Declaration was scheduled to be read. COUNT ON THE YOUTH TO REACT, right? This time we did so by drafting our own Bangkok Declaration of Young People, which my friend Tonyo Cruz featured on the Asian Correspondent.

From the first day of the conference, it was made very clear that a major agenda in the global crusade against corruption is tapping and harnessing the potentials of the youth: “The moderator summed up the main outcomes [of the opening plenary/leadership forum] in just 15 words: ‘Focus on youth, work from the ground up, promote transparency and we have to kick butts!’” (from Issue 02 of the IACC Today newsletter). At the closing plenary, one of the panelists even commented that she hopes to see less gray hair among the speakers/panelists next time. Sounds good. But in the end to me it all seemed plainly rhetorical at best, hypocritical at worst. I will not name names, but even some people from Transparency International agreed with me on this. Well, yes, I am irked that despite our request, we were not allowed to read our Youth Declaration on stage but yes, also, the way we were ignored spoke volumes to me. YOU WANT THE YOUTH? WELL HELLO HERE WE ARE THE YOUTH! Maybe I should understand that they thought of youth involvement in anti-corruption JUST NOW (God knows what they talked about in Athens in 2008), but I have high hopes and expectations for the organizers of the 15th IACC in Brazil to finally take the youth challenge seriously.

Though we were few (10 of the 1,200), we made a strong physical presence at the conference, and WE WILL NOT SHUT UP. Here are some evidence, when my friend Emmanuel Sanyi from Cameroon was the first and one of the last participants to address the plenary:

Count on us to strengthen our online network, starting with GYAC-N’s Ning. The internet has been our first bastion, and I sincerely hope it doesn’t end there. YES, we the youth are with you in the fight against corruption, but I hope you mean it when you say you’re with us, too.

~~

EDIT (21Nov, 10:03AM Phil time): From fellow GYAC-er, Gina Romero of Ocasa, an anti-corruption organization in Colombia:

About the presence of youth in the different IACC that had been held. It is true that it had been reduced, but not completelly forgoten.

Ocasa had participated in four anticorruption conferences: Seoul 2003; Guatemala 2006; Athens 2008; and Bangkok 2010. In this four conferences, different scenarios for young people had been open. I agree that is not enough and that some times the menction of youth is not more than a good intention that a real commitment, but it is necesary to know this past to stablish really useful and intelligent strategies.

In Seoul 2003, when actually came up the idea of creating what is Ocasa now, an open parallel youth youth forum where held, in this link it can be found the information about that activity (http://www.11iacc.org/iacc/html/para_4.html). I do not have the conclusions on that participation, but will ask for them and see if I can get them. The important thing to know here is that in that moment the conference organizers themselves opened up the space for youth.

On the other side, in Guatemala 2006 there was not specific scenario for youth, so some young participants (with the innitiative of Ocasa’s representatives) held a youth paralel declaration that can be seen in this link (http://guatemaladeclaration.blogspot.com/2006/11/english.html). And, also, had the change of including a menction of youth in the final conference’s declaration (http://www.12iacc.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=106).

In Athens 2008, linked with the ICT discussions, there also was held some activities related with youth, but, again, there no was any specific space for youth. In Bangkok 2010, as some of the GYACs representatives had say, there was some activities related with yout: the youth journalist contest, the youth challenge, the rethinking sessions where the youth issue was address… Also, some of the GYAC’s representatives also leaded a youth declaration, established a point of information about GYAC’s and spread the voice of the existance of the network (specially participating in the sessions where the youth issue was address) and the important of working with youth in the fight against corruption.

I do believe that, although insuficient, the voices of youth in the Conferences are rising. What we must do (and unfortunatelly did not do for Bangkok) is to come up with a strong and eficient strategy. And how to prepare ourselves for having an incident in this scenarios using the very few tools that the used, for example, we could have reunite some youth to virtually attend the activities held in the conference that were being transmited in Internet. We wanted to do it so in Colombia but the time difference didnt allow us to do it.

We have two years to preparate it and to see in which other international scenarios the GYAC must be present.

GINA ROMERO
Ocasa’s Executive Director
Colombia

NB. Ah, and about the youth challenge, they received just seven videos (three of them where send by Ocasa) unfortunatelly the deadline was too short and the call to weak. I posted the call on this network and it seems to me that no one took the advantage of sending the video. Some times, that is the problem in working with youth, they keep saying that there is no chances for participating but when the chances are open they dont take them!.

So. Bangkok day two, IACC day one. I can’t believe I actually found the time to do this today, but:

Breakfast. I felt bad eating American food in BANGKOK FREAKING THAILAND but this fresh guava juice was a winner.

CONTINUE READING..

Day one of 14IACC was a riot, man. I have a lot of stories but we got home at 12MN last night, and work is swallowing me whole today, but COMPLAIN IS THE VERY LAST THING I’LL DO; I HAVE NEVER HAD SO MUCH FUN IN A LONG TIME.

1. This is the biggest conference I’ve ever been; this must how a UN gathering looks/feels like because there are interpreters and all that fancy shiny stuff.

2. Everyone’s wearing black suits/coats! I feel so underdressed.

3. What we did on our last night in Brussels we did on our first night here. Amazing Thailand indeed! Pictures will tell this story.

4. Went to Patpung with Evo, Narayan, Marlon, and Pauline. Amsterdam, eat your hearts out; Patpung was disgusting, compelling, appalling ALL AT THE SAME FREAKING TIME.

It might not be soon, but trust me to sit down someday and write all about this trip, MORE THAN YOU WANNA KNOW. For now, here’s a video:

As David would say, CORRUPTION, you are in bad shape; we’re out to get ya!

Follow me on twitter.com/coldpastoral for some of the latest on #14iacc + some random incoherent stuff from me.

Heading out to the conference venue in a bit, but half of our delegation (from Europe and Africa) is horribly jetlagged*, so we’re still waiting for them. (Marlon and I aren’t, so we’re expected to function. Ha!) In the meantime, before I start blogging hardcore anti-corruption updates from the conference, here be photos from my first day and night here in Bangkok:

At the airport we were greeted by Thai IACC representatives, who didn’t want to show their faces.

CONTINUE READING

Flying to Bangkok in a few to be part of our Global Youth Anti-Corruption Network (GYAC-N) delegation at the 14th International Anti-Corruption Conference. I’m with Marlon, and a mini reunion with Bunga, Gabi, Narayan, and others is in order. I’m psyched!

And yes, you may take this as a sign of this blog’s long overdue resurrection.

WBI, GYAC, Philippines, Mindanao, represent!