Do you believe in the argument that Thai culture promotes corruption? If you don't then you better argue back. What I'm trying to present to you is an overall approach on corruption and the good governance and as a journalist I will talk a little bit about the role of the media to promote corruption, not to eradicate corruption. In Thailand as you know, a lot of journalists receive bribes and they're not really honest. What we try to do as members and president of the Thai Journalists Association is to make sure that Thai journalists follow strict codes of conduct. When they report, they report honestly, but as you , know mass media in Thailand still has a lot of problems, low wages which cannot meet needs. Officially, I think corruption is defined as abuse of public power for personal gain. The reason that I have to use the Thai example is because you are here right in Bangkok. Now . Thailand is moving very fast and going through many transitional periods and issues. In the Thai context, corruption has different connotations and means different things. We coin words to make fun of the word corruption.

I will use the word eating to illustrate my point Thai culture is based on oral communication. We eat so everything about corruption is associated with eating. For example, in newspapers we write about the senior officers who eat forests, roads. It's not about their ability, it just means he is corrupt. He is engaged in super infrastructure construction or sometimes will take over the entire forest. That's why we associate eating with cor-ruption. That's part of Thai culture but our understanding is that corruption occurs because people in civil service do not get enough sal-ary so they have to work overtime.

We believe that the corruption came because whenever the government provided a service, we don't get it in time. If we want to get speedy service or rush through certain things you have to pay extra or in other words, "tea money". The notion has gradually changed but Thais in the past few years tried to reduce state intervention and tried to liberalise its economy. In the past if you wanted to invest in Thailand you have to go through the back door and if some of you are Chinese you know the notion of "Joe ho man" which means you need to find connection. Thailand is like many countries in the third Y world where we need to know how to make the connection and a right connection at that and pay the right amount of money. In other words corruption perpetuates corruption. For me I see it as a big problem. because it impedes the development of poor countries. Most of them are underdeveloped because of the problem of corruption. Many people say you cannot do anything at all about it because certain aspects of our culture promote corruption. In Thailand we have the concept of "Hai-Tan".

"Hai-Tan" is a Buddhist term which means you have to give something to other persons. In the provinces sometimes you vote for certain politicians and even though they work for you without any money you still have to give certain amounts of money as a token maybe 2013 or 408 or whatever. However of course in real terms it's like you bribe him/her in working for you so how do you overcome this social expectation? I think the cultural aspect can be overcome with rational thinking. If you explain to the people that in the end the corruption will cause damage to their own local projects and also that corruption means wasting their own money a lot of times. The Thai people think that corruption in-volves other people's money and not their own. I think you need to discuss this aspect as well as that of the public's notion of corruption and the other argument that a lot of times the people like to agree that bribing is important to do business in order to progress. This is the argument that industrialized countries use against the third world and that explains why some other industrialized countries provide the tax reduction for the weak companies who belong to some of the third world countries but according to the latest dkvelopments some of the Governments in Europe for ex-ample France and Germany now are cooperating in punishing companies that pay bribes In the USA it is considered illegal if companies bribe local government officials.

To put you in the Thai context I think corruption is now getting worse but don't get the wrong impression if you read the newspapers and you see that there is a lot of exposure about corruption and scandals-this is because the media have reported widely and much more than before and think the newly established National Counter Corruption Commission or NCCC has already flexed it's muscle. NCCC was considered as a paper tiger. They talk a lot but the members of the NCCC didn't do anything. I think now they have tried to prove the matter and as you know if you followed the news earlier this month about our deputy interior minister Sanan Kachonprasat. I personally call him "Thai Mafia" because. he was engaged in filing fraudulent statement of his income. As you know now in Thailand on becoming a cabinet minister you have to report all your assets to the NCCC and Sanan didn't realize such a small mistake would cost him the job. That shows you that Thailand is changing and that ev-erybody has to follow the rules of engagement. The reason that I use the rule of engagement is because in any democratic society you have the rule of law and rule of engagement that you have to respect. I think from now on the corruption issue in Thailand will be dealt with severely.

In the past, people said- "forget about Thailand" you know the powerlessness of the judicial system in Thailand is well known. You can buy a judge-well, not only one judge, not only two judges, but four judges at the same time. You know and if you are doing business major, you probably followed the reports of the newspapers about the bankruptcy case of the TPI. TPI lost the case even though, it was widely known that TPI bribed all the judges, that is something that you have to find out and for that you have to read the Nation.

My second topic will be good governance. In fact, you asked me to talk about corruption and good governance. they are two sides of a coin. I mean the key to good governance is to eradicate corruption. But good governance in Thailand is very funny because it has become an issue in the past three years. In Thailand now we have a big problem because we can not translate the word, "good governance". A lot of people use "Thammarat". Thammarat sounds like a Buddhist kingdom and then you have somebody who says that it's "Thammaphiban". So whatever I you want to use it, I think for me I use good governance because it's a very broad term that can mean anything. So when you talk about good 1 governance, you better make sure you know what it is. For those of you who study business, good governance really means corporate good governance which is also very popular now in Thailand. I remember in the last two years there were about 24 seminars on good gover-nance, good corporate governance but still some of the Thai companies are very selfish in releasing waste water which causes pollution. Good governance does not mean to dress well and set up good public relations. That's the wrong notion of good governance. In fact, if you talk about good governance it means in future you have to release the records of your board room meetings, of policy if it is against the public interest and I think in the future my newspaper will support any move that will promote good governance. That would encourage lots of public companies to review all the details of the decision making process. This must be something new because in Thailand, a lot of public companies especially public companies that decide to provide the public services are liars. I would suggest that the reason why good governance is an issue in Thailand is because the 1997 economic crisis has taught us that although we have the rules and regulations our politicians and government officials didn't follow them.

So, the government decided last year to put the good governance into practice. In this case, they use the Thai word "Thammapiban". On the national agenda, what does it mean when the government decide to put good government, as an element in the national agenda, it means that all the government organizations have to follow good government principles. So last year each government department has to tile a report on good governance whether the officers are dishonest or not, whether they come on time. Each department has to identify but at the moment there is no common list of good governance. For example, what do we consider good governance for an ordinary city clerk to do. He must come on time. He must provide good service. He must answer all the questions posed by ordinary citizens. If you're minister you must not take money from any political party or lobby for it. There's no common list of principles of good government. In fact, this is a big project which Thailand Development Institute is now working on to try and define what is the criteria for good government. When I talk about corruption and good government I have to talk about the role of the press. As you know Thailand is one of the countries which enjoys press freedpm in the region but the standard of the press as we hear is not up to par yet. I'd confess we have to improve our qualities and it is a fact that Thai newspapers had not played a leading role in promoting good government. Our efforts to eradicate corruption indicate that we still have a long way to go. In this discussion too we would like to introduce the notion also of mass media good government. A lot of times people talk about mass media and in Thailand people blame the reporters in the field. If you follow Thai 'TV, it's really interesting because Thai journalists start as reporters at the government house. So you'll see hundreds of reporters spend 8-12 hours a day at the government house and you'll see them, shuffling the microphone in front of prime minister's face or any senior official's face. On TV you'll always see Prime Minister Chuan-giving press interviews very time he opens the door of his car. Have you ever noticed that every time the Prime Minster will not give an interview, he will open the door and try to get into his car. So this is one of the problems because every time the Prime Minister says something it is always in small short phrases: "I don't know, no comment or even please ask other people". There's no really genuine interactive source of an exchange of view or even questions. Thic is why a lot of people blame reporter for missing the story. I would like to go even further because mass media good government include the publishers, the owners of the newspapers, editors, news desks, not only the reporter in the field, because the reporter often find that the story has been changed by the editors or the publishers simply because publishers here follow western interests. How can you buy a good newspaper'? I will give you one good example: a famous gambler owns one of the leading newspapers-one of the oldest newspapers in Thailand, Siam Rath. I'm referring to Chat Taopoon. He won the contest recently for a senate seat, but the National Election Committee suspended his name. He's a well-known gambler and owns a string of gambling dens.

I'd like to pose a question to a person like this who owns a newspaper and a good publisher. Some could say yes, there's nothing re-lated. However as a jounalist I would argue that it would be very difficult. Like the leader of Chart Thai party, who owns the Baan Meung newspaper, I would like to ask you a question also. You are part of a political party and you own a newspaper will you be objective? Then we have other new things that occurred recently, we have a newspaper that supports the government in Thailand. The Thai press is very cynical, they always go against the established government, but for the first time, you have a newspaper, a regular newspaper called Naew Na, which has decided to take the decision to cooperate. The other newspapers more or less are taking a neutral stand and that depends on the mood or the temperament of the editor if he wants to attack the government. Nonetheless it is the most crucial time for the Thai press considering the talk on mass media and good government. Now you have the October 14, 1973 situation, which was the first demonstration, which allowed freedom of the press. Now because of the new constitution, the radio and electronic media can belong to the public. At the moment, there is a discussion on how to work on the broadcasting laws and how to set up the national broadcasting commission. Owners of T.V. stations already have a 25- 30 years concession so they won't sit down to compromise because if they go against the government they might lose the concession. We are now at the critical stage all together and you will see how the Thai society is and I think in the years to come Thai press or Thai mass media will improve. We don't talk about the quality in other countries. They talk about the volume, the quality of the press freedom and think in Thailand we must talk about the volume and quality of the press. The media must be responsible and accountable and I myself am a president of Thai journalists association. We have a great task because I realize that working in the Nation it is a whole world apart from other journalists who write in vernacular language. It is like I am living in an ivory tower because I write in English I have to think in a rational way. I cannot write any thing I want, which in Thai you can do because whatever I write in English the next minute I push button it will be all over the internet. Within a few seconds if your argument does not make sense somebody will write a nasty email back to you immediately.