Corruption perception of the Philippines worsens

THE PHILIPPINES dropped 10 rungs in the 2017 issue of the annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released early this morning by Transparency International.

The Philippines ranked 111^th out of 180 countries from 101/176 in the 2016 index, with a score of 34 on a 0-100 scale where 0 denotes that a country is “highly corrupt” and 100 means it is “very clean”, from 35 in 2016.

“CPI results correlate not only with the attacks on press freedom and the reduction of space for civil society organizations,” Delia Ferreira Rubio, chair of Transparency International, said in a press release.

“High levels of corruption also correlate with weak rule of law, lack of access to information, governmental control over social media and reduced citizens’ participation. In fact, what is at stake is the very essence of democracy and freedom.”

The report of Transparency International, which marks its 25^th anniversary this year, “reveals some disturbing information”, the statement added.

“Despite attempts to combat corruption around the world, the majority of countries are moving too slowly in their efforts,” the statement read.

“While stemming the tide against corruption takes time, in the last six years many countries have still made little to no progress. Even more alarming, further analysis of the index results indicates that countries with the lowest protections for press and nongovernment organisations also tend to have the worst rates of corruption.”