Anti-corruption efforts of RP still way behind

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines’ anti-corruption efforts still lag behind its neighbors after its governance ranking was equal to the one received by the Comoros, an island nation considered as among the poorest African countries. This was announced by the World Bank in its report called Worldwide Governance Indicators 1996 to 2008. The Philippines scored negative 0.75 in its control of corruption criterion last year, weaker than its positive 0.18 in 1996, the Washington-based lender said. However, this year's ranking was a marginal improvement from negative 0.79 in 2007. The same score was received by the Union of the Comoros, which is located off the eastern coast of Africa on the northern end of the Mozambique Channel. About half of its 798,000 population live on less than $1.25 a day. The Philippines’ neighbors fared better in their anti-corruption measures with Thailand, -0.38; Malaysia, 0.14; Indonesia, -0.64, and Singapore, 2.34. Only Vietnam got a worse score than the Philippines at -0.76. Besides control of corruption, the WGI measures six broad dimensions of governance such as voice and accountability, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and rule of law. The indicators cover 212 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000 and annually for 2002 to 2008. The indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 35 separate data sources to capture the views of tens of thousands of survey respondents worldwide, as well as thousands of experts in the private, non-government organization, and public sectors. In terms of government effectiveness, the Philippines scored zero last year from 0.04 in 2007, getting the same score as Suriname, one of South America's poorest and least developed countries. In terms of political instability, it had -1.41, even worse than Haiti’s -1.39. The United Nations has been maintaining a peacekeeping force in Haiti as a way to quell violence after a coup ousted a democratically-elected government. For rule of law, the Philippines scored -0.49, close to the -0.46 received by Madagascar, also seen as among the most impoverished countries in Africa; and -0.54 for regulatory quality, same as the score of Montenegro, one of the poorest countries in Europe. In voice and accountability, the Philippines scored -0.2 from -0.16. Its score was comparable with Ecuador's -0.22 score, which has recently defaulted on its multi-billion dollar bonds. The World Bank stressed that governance is a crucial factor in the fight against poverty and improves living standards. "When governance is improved by one standard deviation, infant mortality declines by two-thirds and incomes rise about three-fold in the long run," the bank added. On average the quality of governance around the world has not improved much over the past decade, the World Bank said. The good news is that some countries are recognizing and responding to governance challenges, and are showing strong improvements that reflect concerted efforts by political leaders, policymakers, civil society, and the private sector, Aart Kraay, co-author of the report and lead economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank said. The WGI is a research project initiated by Kaufmann and Kraay in the late 1990s, and is now coauthored with Massimo Mastruzzi of the World Bank Institute. Governance is defined as traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised. Besides covering processes involving the selection, monitoring, and replacement of governments, governance also covers the government’s capacity “to effectively formulate and implement sound policies and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them." - GMANews.TV