Philippines one of “worst offenders” of press with corruption index lower than average – Transparency International

February 22, 2018

The Philippines is one of the "worst offenders" of journalists and those who have been challenging the alleged corruption in government, a German-based anti-corruption watchdog said.

In the Corruption Perception Index released on February 21, Transparency International cited the seeming correlation between the CPI results and that those countries with least protection for press and non-governmental organizations.

The Philippines' CPI score went down from 35 in 2016 to 34 in 2017, with the ranking still at 111th out of 180 countries and territories surveyed. The country's 2017 score was lower than the average score of 43 of all the participants in the survey.

The CPI was determined through the perceived levels of public sector corruption by the experts and business people and used a scale of zero to 100, where zero is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.

The TI report noted that the results of the 2017 CPI shows that corruption in many countries is still strong.

"Often, when individuals dare to challenge the status quo, they suffer the consequences. In some countries across the region, journalists, activists, opposition leaders and even staff of law enforcement or watchdog agencies are threatened, and in the worst cases, even murdered," the report said.

"Philippines, India and the Maldives are among the worst regional (Asia Pacific) offenders in this respect. These countries score high for corruption and have fewer press freedoms and higher numbers of journalist deaths," TI said.

Citing the Committee to Protect Journalists, TI said in the last six years, 15 journalists working on corruption stories in the three Asia Pacific countries, including the Philippines, were murdered.

Compared with the other Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines only surpassed Myanmar, which ranked 130th; Laos, 135th; and Cambodia, 161st.

Singapore ranked 6th; Brunei, 32nd; Malaysia, 62nd; Indonesia, 96th; Thailand, 96th; and Vietnam, 107th.

New Zealand was the top country perceived to have less corruption, while Somalia was at the bottom.

Japan ranked 20th, with a score of 73. Celerina Monte/DMS