THE Integrity Consortium, led by the Makati Business Club (MBC) and the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP), is coming out with the “unified code of conduct” that will be included in the corporate governance handbook of companies which have signed the Integrity Initiative.

Peter Angelo Perfecto, MBC executive director, said the unified code of conduct will be launched at the first Integrity Summit on September 14 and will take the form of a basic set of regulations of companies that have vowed to shy away from bribery and other unethical practices in doing business.

“Then next year we will have the control measures, and by the fourth year we will have the compliance guidelines and certification. Hopefully, by that time, the government will make the Integrity Initiative accreditation as one of its requirements in dealing with the private sector,” Perfecto said.

The Integrity Initiative, which receives funding from several companies that make up the Integrity Consortium, was started by the ECCP and MBC at the latter part of 2010.  Since then, ECCP President Hubert D’Aboville, vice chairman of the consortium, said the number of corporate signatories has risen to more than 650. On the government side, 14 Cabinet secretaries and bureau chiefs have already signed it.

Ramon del Rosario Jr., MBC president and chairman of Integrity Consortium, said they would ask President Aquino, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile to sign the Integrity Pledge on September 14.

President Aquino will deliver the keynote address at the first Integrity Summit.

Among the speakers at the summit are Tony Kwok, anti-corruption consultant and former head of operations of the Hong Kong Independent Commission Against Corruption, and Joel Turkewitz, World Bank governance specialist.

D’Aboville said signatories to the Integrity Pledge should reach 1,000 companies by the end of the year. The inclusion of more firms, he said, will move faster once a signatory will ask three to five of its suppliers to also sign the pledge, which is what Convergys is now doing.

This, he said, will become a competitive advantage for the signatories since they will prioritize transactions among firms that have signed the pledge.

Del Rosario said just by having a level playing field, companies will be benefiting immensely already. “We will be competing not on the basis of the ability to give bribes on the real competitive standards like quality of products and services.”

Later, del Rosario said universities will also be asked to incorporate in their curriculum elements of integrity, and he has already brought this up with the management of the De La Salle University.