And working from top to bottom is a good start.

Still, a whole lot more needs to be done to address the long-festering, systemic, and massive problem of corruption in the country.

And everybody, we have said here many times, has to get on board the anti-corruption campaign train. 

President Aquino has hailed the arrest of former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo, as proof his antigraft drive is working, but analysts are agreed much more needs to be done to end the country’s corruption plague.

Mrs. Arroyo, in power from 2001 to 2010, was charged on Friday with rigging senatorial elections, and the President has vowed to pursue her for a wide range of other corrupt acts she allegedly committed while in power.

“This is the fruit of our reforms to fight corruption. The principle behind these reforms is that the guilty must be made to account,” P-Noy  was quoted by a wire service report as saying over the weekend in his first comments on her since she was arrested.

Mr. Aquino won a landslide election victory last year after campaigning almost exclusively on a platform of ending widespread corruption across all sectors of society, which is one of the main reasons for the country’s crushing poverty.

He is widely regarded as being corruption-free and he has used his clean image as one of the key drivers in trying to change the public’s tolerance for graft.

P-Noy has also vowed to hold even the most powerful people to account, and has made the pursuit of Mrs. Arroyo one of his administration’s top priorities.

Speaking during the 75th anniversary celebration of the National Bureau of Investigation at its headquarters in Manila, he said he was being criticized for his aggressiveness in going after corrupt officials.

“But my answer to them is this – with their aggressiveness in stealing people’s money, we will triple our aggressiveness in hunting them down to make them accountable now,” Aquino said in Filipino.

Mrs. Arroyo stood down last year with opinion polls showing her to be the most unpopular leader since the 1980s largely because of the belief she was corrupt.

She is alleged to have approved multimillion-dollar government contracts that enriched herself, her family and supporters. She is also accused of cheating to win the 2004 presidential election. She denies all the charges.

Political analysts say that, while P-Noy’s determination to hold Mrs. Arroyo to account signals a good intention to fight graft, they have not yet taken the major reforms needed to dig out the roots of corruption.

“Their idea seems to be to get one big fish, but that won’t be enough,” said political science professor Francisco Magno of De La Salle University.”It has to go beyond the campaign promises, the rhetoric of change.”

Magno said one of the government’s top priorities should be to strengthen agencies that held officials to account, such as the Office of the Ombudsman.

“The (watchdog) institutions are weak. They need to be strengthened, put more resources, put in more lawyers and pay them better,” he said.

Unexplained wealth for politicians is a common theme across the country.

Provincial governors earn just P50,000 a month while city mayors make about P45,000, according to Mars Buan, a political scientist who advises firms for risk consultancy Pacific Strategies and Assessments.

But Buan said in many parts of the country, the houses of governors, mayors and other politicians were usually the most luxurious, and would cost much more than their salaries allowed.

“There are hazy ethics, low salaries, the pressure of the system . . . the need to get back all the money they spent in elections,” Buan said in describing local politics.