*Dr. Rodolfo John Ortiz Teope, PhD, EdD, DM
As I watch the investigations into the flood control scandal unfold, as I listen to reports about corruption inside the Bureau of Fire Protection, and as I observe the intensified monitoring and auditing of local government transactions, I cannot dismiss these as routine administrative exercises in a complicated constitutional environment and a complex arena of public administration. Something deeper is taking shape. Beneath the headlines and political noise, I see the emergence of a governing conviction, a discipline that I myself have coined and now call "Integritocracy," grounded in what I likewise term "Integritism."
These are not casual inventions of language. They are concepts born from decades of observation, scholarship, and engagement in governance. Integritocracy, as I define it, is a system where integrity is institutionalized, not merely encouraged. Integritism is its philosophical core, the conviction that public office is stewardship, not entitlement. I arrived at these terms through lived experience as a former local official, as an educator in public safety and governance, and as a consultant to numerous government agencies, national leaders, local chief executives, and even private sector institutions. I have seen systems from the inside. I have witnessed how policies are crafted, how budgets are negotiated, how influence operates, and how small compromises gradually evolve into structural corruption. These terms were born from the conviction that without systemic integrity, no political structure, no matter how elegant, can endure.
Flood control funds are not abstract figures in a ledger. They are lifelines. When corruption infiltrates such projects, it is not simply administrative misconduct. It is a moral rupture. It is the anguish of communities whose homes are submerged when prevention was possible. It is preventable suffering disguised as bureaucratic inefficiency. The same moral weight applies to corruption within the Bureau of Fire Protection. When procurement is manipulated or systems are compromised, it is not paperwork that burns. It is homes, businesses, and lives. Accountability in these sectors is not a partisan position. It is a matter of national conscience.
In the actions of Jonvic Remulla as Secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government, I see a deliberate shift from accommodation to enforcement. The massive monitoring of local government units and the auditing of transactions signal that impunity is no longer assumed. For too long, corruption survived because it was negotiable. Influence softened investigations. Alliances diluted consequences. Silence became protection. What appears now is less negotiable and more structural. It suggests that enforcement is not situational. It is institutional.
Of course, skepticism will surface. Some will question whether someone associated with a political dynasty can genuinely advance a doctrine centered on integrity. In our political culture, dynastic affiliation often invites suspicion of entrenchment. But experience in governance can be a crucible. Years of managing provinces, confronting internal integrity challenges, and navigating bureaucratic weaknesses expose a leader to the anatomy of corruption. That familiarity can either protect dysfunction or dismantle it. When used for reform, experience becomes strategic clarity.
From my own years advising agencies and local governments, I have learned that corruption rarely begins with grand conspiracies. It begins with tolerated shortcuts, rationalized exceptions, and minor deviations left uncorrected. Systems do not collapse overnight. They erode quietly. To reverse that erosion requires structural discipline. Integritocracy, as I have conceptualized it, demands transparency that exposes wrongdoing, audits that verify compliance, enforcement that acts without hesitation, and deterrence that reshapes behavior. When corruption becomes high risk and oversight becomes consistent, integrity ceases to be optional. It becomes operational culture.
What makes this development even more compelling is that Jonvic Remulla himself may not even be consciously aware that what he is operationalizing resembles what I have termed Integritocracy and Integritism. He may simply see it as a duty: cleaning the system, enforcing accountability, tightening monitoring mechanisms, and refusing to tolerate corruption. Yet doctrines are not always born from formal declarations. They are born from consistent action. Leaders do not necessarily intend to create ideologies. They respond to realities, confront dysfunction, and make decisions that gradually form a pattern. When those decisions consistently favor accountability over accommodation, structure over convenience, and enforcement over negotiation, they begin to embody a philosophy, even if unnamed. The terminology may be mine, but the observable pattern of action gives it life.
The ultimate test of Integritocracy, however, lies beyond lower-level enforcement. It must transcend hierarchy. If credible evidence exists, no title, no surname, and no office, whether local executive, legislator, or national official, be it a Congressman, Senator, Speaker, Senate President, Executive Secretary, Vice President, or President, should be beyond investigation. The rule of law must not circumvent power. Investigate where evidence warrants. Prosecute where a basis exists. Allow judicial processes to operate without fear or favor. Only when accountability is blind to hierarchy can the public trust that no one is untouchable.
For generations, societies have debated democracy, socialism, and capitalism, each proclaimed as the definitive answer to governance. Yet history teaches us a sobering truth. No system collapses solely because of its theoretical design. It collapses because corruption is allowed to live within it. Democracy, noble in promise, can be captured by financial interests and manipulated by influence. Socialism, visionary in aspiration, can be distorted when centralized authority escapes accountability. Any ideology devoid of integrity becomes fragile. Corruption is the silent assassin of governance. It does not overthrow institutions with spectacle. It corrodes them slowly until decay becomes collapse.
Integritocracy does not seek to replace democracy or oppose socialism. It seeks to fortify whatever system exists by embedding integrity as its foundation. Without integrity, democracy becomes transactional. Without integrity, socialism becomes oppressive. Without integrity, any structure, no matter how visionary, decays. Corruption will always kill the system if the system refuses to confront it.
This path will not be universally comfortable. It may unsettle entrenched interests. It may provoke resistance from those accustomed to negotiated outcomes. But cleansing has never aligned with convenience. It requires courage and persistence. If investigations into the flood control scandal continue without compromise, if corruption within the Bureau of Fire Protection is addressed thoroughly, and if local government transactions remain under rigorous scrutiny, then what is unfolding is more than enforcement. It is structural recalibration.
If this discipline endures, if integrity remains institutional rather than rhetorical, then history may one day recognize that what I have termed Integritocracy and Integritism began to take practical form during this period. Under the stewardship of Jonvic Remulla at the Department of the Interior and Local Government, these ideas may move from conceptual articulation to operational standard, not as a TAG, but as systems.
__
*About the author:
