Country’s ranking improves in latest transparency survey
JUST FIVE days shy of the United Nations-declared International Anti-Corruption Day, the Philippines showed a slightly better score in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) of an international anti-corruption watchdog.
Transparency International-Philippines ranked the country 85th against 175 other countries and territories in its 2014 survey titled: “Clean growth at risk.” The country’s rank is an improvement over its ranking last year.
The 20th edition of the CPI showed that the Philippines has advanced its ranking from 94th out of 177 in 2013 and 105th out of 175 in 2012. This year, the country scored 38/100—with zero as perceived to be highly corrupt and 100 as perceived to be very clean. Last year, the country’s score was 36 while in 2012 it was 34.
Economic growth is weakened when “leaders and high level officials abuse power to appropriate public funds for personal gain.” – José Ugaz, Transparency International chairman
“We consider a score of +4 to represent change in the perceived level of corruption,” Dr. Cleo Calimbahin, Transparency International-Philippines executive director, said.
“Although the Philippines still belongs to two thirds of the 175 countries ranked who scored below 50, this is a marked improvement from the 2012 CPI score,” Calimbahin added.
GRAPHICS by Transparency International
The CPI is a survey of the perception of corruption in the public sector by business people and country experts outside of the Philippines. It is an annual report of Transparency International as a snapshot of the relative degree of corruption by ranking countries from all over the world.
José Ugaz, chair of Transparency International said the latest CPI shows how economic growth is weakened when “leaders and high level officials abuse power to appropriate public funds for personal gain.”
“Corrupt officials smuggle ill-gotten assets into safe havens through offshore companies with absolute impunity,” Ugaz added.
It can be recalled that on April 4, last year, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ)—in partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ)—published a two-part cross-border investigative report on Filipino politicians who maintained offshore trusts in the British Virgin Isles.
Politicians who have been outed in the report included Ilocos governor Maria Imelda “Imee” Marcos-Manotoc, Senator Joseph Victor G. Ejercito, and then Senator Manny B. Villar.
The ICIJ obtained data on 122,000 offshore companies or trusts, about 12,000 intermediaries (agents or “introducers”), and some 130,000 records of the people and agents who run, own, benefit from or hide behind offshore companies. But instead of just uploading the raw documents online, ICIJ partnered with journalists and media agencies to check out and verify the data.
The project has been touted as one of the biggest cross-border investigative partnerships in journalism history and one of the biggest financial leaks in history.
Transparency International said the latest CPI also shows that “corporate secrecy, global money laundering, the abuse of power, secret dealings and bribery continue to ravage societies around the world.”
GRAPHICS by Cong B. Corrales
“Countries at the bottom need to adopt radical anti-corruption measures in favour of their people. Countries at the top of the index should make sure they don’t export corrupt practices to underdeveloped countries,” Ugaz said.
This year’s International Anti-Corruption Day theme—Break the corruption chain—concurs with the call of Transparency International.
“Corruption attacks the foundation of democratic institutions by distorting electoral processes, perverting the rule of law and creating bureaucratic quagmire whose only reason for existing is the soliciting of bribes,” the United Nation said in its website.
On December 2005, the UN General Assembly declared every December 9 of the year as the International Anti-Corruption Day to raise awareness of corruption and of the role of the Convention against Corruption in combating and preventing it. Cong B. Corrales