BERLIN, Germany — Corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) is keeping an eye on President Benigno S. Aquino III to see if he is fulfilling his promises to promote transparency and to address the stigma of corruption in the Philippine bureaucracy.

Samantha Grant, TI’s program coordinator for Asia and the Pacific, said she is hopeful that the Aquino administration would stand by its principles of weeding out the corruption to improve the lives of the poor Filipinos.

“I think that people are quite hopeful and he needs to deliver on the promises he made. It is important that we see results,” she told the Manila Bulletin on Tuesday at the TI headquarters in the German capital of 3.5 million people.

“I think the time is ripe and it is up to him to bring about change,” she said.

Grant met with 22 young journalists from 17 Asian and African countries visiting the headquarters of the worldwide non-partisan civil society organization campaigning against corruption as part of this year’s 27-day Summer Academy on Media Freedom and Responsibility.

The training course is initiated by the International Institute for Journalism (IIJ) of InWent-Capacity Building International, Germany, which has been giving training courses to young journalists from developing and transitional countries to enhance their knowledge in the newspaper business as well as in online journalism.

Grant was in the Philippines last February, three months before the national and local elections, where she said she personally heard Aquino promising to stamp out corruption and promote human rights, along with other presidential candidates, including Sen. Jamby Madrigal and Olongapo Councilor JC de los Reyes during the Second Integrity and Human Rights Forum in Makati City.

During the forum, Grant said the incoming 15th President of the Philippines would face the huge challenge of addressing the apparent institutionalized corruption in the country.

Grant expressed optimism that Aquino, whose integrity has not been tainted by corruption, could introduce reforms in the bureaucracy and if his government would sincerely implement anti-corruption drive, the Philippines’ ranking in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) would “possibly” be changed.

“It takes a long time for this change to be reflected on the CPI even when there is a lot of positive work being done. Sometimes, it drives more attention to the problem or makes people more aware of the problem. So, in terms of whether there is a chance or not, I don’t know. But, there is a possibility of making change, I hope,” she said when asked about the chances of the Philippines to improve its CPI ranking.

Using corruption-related data from expert and business surveys, CPI ranks countries in terms of the degree of corruption among public officials and politicians as perceived by business people and country analysts.

In the 2009 CPI, the Philippines ranked 139th, along with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Manila’s CPI score of 2.4 was seen as improvement from the 2008’s ranking of 141 with a score of 2.3. The score ranges from zero, which means highly corrupt to 10, which is corruption-free.

Among the five countries seen as least corrupt in the 2009 CPI were New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden, and Switzerland. While, war-torn countries, including Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Iraq landed on the spot of most corrupt countries.

While the 2009 CPI focused on the corruption and private sector, this year’s Global Corruption Report will tackle the corruption risks related to tackling climate change. The report will be launched in October in London.