Philippines drops further down global corruption ranking

corruption
An overview of the perception of corruption across the world

The Philippines has dropped further down the 2017 global corruption rankings as compared to last year.

According to the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) published this week, the Philippines ranked 111th out of 180 countries surveyed, with a score of 34 out of 100.

ADVERTISEMENT

This was a drop from its 35 point score in 2016, when it ranked 101st out of 176 countries.

The report named the Philippines, India and the Maldives as among the most corrupt countries in the Asia Pacific region.

“These countries score high for corruption and have fewer press freedoms and higher numbers of journalist deaths,” it read.

ADVERTISEMENT

The index from global organisation Transparency International (TI) ranks countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption.

CPI uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt, and 100 is very clean.

More than two-thirds of all the countries surveyed scored below 50 this year.

ADVERTISEMENT

New Zealand ranked the highest in 2017 with a score of 89, with Denmark following at 88. The three bottom ranked countries are Syria (14), South Sudan (12) and Somalia (9).

According to TI’s analysis, corruption levels around the world are linked to declining freedom of expression.

“We found evidence to suggest that those countries that respect press freedom, encourage open dialogue, and allow for full participation of CSOs (civil society organisations) in the public arena tend to be more successful at controlling corruption,” their analysis read.

TI added that countries were “moving too slow” in their attempts to combat corruption.

The report also added that on average, a journalist is killed in a country with a low CPI ranking every week.

Issues of press freedom in the Philippines were in the news again this week after the administration barred an accredited Rappler reporter from entering the Malacañang.

The palace argued that the news website published “fake news” in relation to Special Assistant to the President Bong Go’s involvement in the procurement of Navy frigates.

Since its inception in 1993, TI has been an independent organisation dedicated to combat corruption in the world. Its headquarters are in Berlin, Germany, and it has chapters in more than 100 countries.

Like our page on Facebook

Comments are closed.