By Romie A. Evangelista and Joel Zurbano

The National Police has been tagged as the second most corrupt government agency in the Philippines, next only to the Department of Public Works and Highways, according to the latest Pulse Asia survey.

Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. said the survey results could have been influenced by the reported rigging of bids for a World Bank-assisted road project. ?It is unfortunate that efforts to expand the infrastructure network across the islands and provide jobs are being overshadowed by the recent controversies,? Ebdane said.

But police officials are confident the agency could shed off that ugly tag soon since the public perception rating for the uniformed service has been improving for the last three years, starting from ?very bad? in 2006; ?bad? in 2007 and ?poor? in 2008.

?Hopefully, by 2009, we can be rated as ?mediocre? and by 2010, ?good,? ? said Chief Supt. Nicanor Bartolome, police spokesman.

Pulse Asia said 32 percent of survey respondents tagged the Public Works as the most corrupt agency while 21 percent said the National Police is the second most corrupt agency in the government.

Public Works officials said while they welcome such surveys as a gauge of how the public perceives the department?s performance, they have to work doubly hard. ?We will do everything to show that we deliver services with quality and on time,? said Undersecretary Rafael Yabut.

For his part, Bartolome said the police have put in place an Integrated Transformation Program designed to eliminate corruption in the service and correct dysfunctions. ?We have been addressing this perception [of corruption]. There is an indication that our public perception rating has been improving because of the Integrated Transformation Program.?

Citing the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission, Bartolome said police had been rated as no. 6 as among the most compliant agency in the fight against corruption.

?Because of the transformation program, involving all stakeholders, we hope to improve more,? Bartolome said. ?We are very serious in our intention to improve the PNP, enhance capability, we are determined to improve.?

Bartolome admitted that the public?s negative perception against the National Police cannot be erased overnight, ?but this could be improved if we can continuously and consistently push the transformation program and continue doing good for the public.?

Apart from the Public Works Department and National Police, the Pulse Asia survey showed that essentially, the Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Department of Education and the Bureau of Customs are among the third batch of corrupt government agencies.