Philippine ranks 54th in global Democracy Index

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines improved by a notch and ranked 54th out of 167 countries in the 2021 Democracy Index 2020 released yesterday by London-based think tank The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

It ranked 55th in the 2020 index, 54th in 2019, 53rd in 2018 and 51st in 2017.

Based on the report, the Philippines remains a “flawed democracy,” defined as countries that have free and fair elections and basic civil liberties are respected, although there are significant weaknesses in some aspects of democracy, including governance, political culture and participation.

“Flawed democracy” is second among four regime types used by the EIU in its annual index, after “full democracy” and before “hybrid” and “authoritarian” regimes.

According to EIU, the Philippines scored a total of 6.62 out of the highest possible score of 10.

Among the indicators used, the country scored the highest in electoral process and pluralism (9.17), followed by political participation (7.78), civil liberties (6.76), functioning of government (5.0) and political culture (4.38).

The Philippines ranked 10th among countries in Asia and Australasia – from 9th last year – after Indonesia showed significant improvement in its overall score.

Globally, Norway remained on top spot with a score of 9.75, followed by New Zealand (9.37), Finland (9.27), Sweden (9.26), Iceland (9.18), Denmark (9.09), Iceland (9.0), Taiwan (8.99), Australia (8.9) and Switzerland (8.9).

Afghanistan, which ranked 139th in 2020, displaced North Korea at the bottom of the list with a score of 0.32.

It was followed by Myanmar (1.02), which ranked 135th in 2020, North Korea (1.08), Democratic Republic of Congo (1.4), Central African Republic (1.43), Syria (1.43), Turkmenistan (1.66), Chad (1.67), Laos (1.77) and Equatorial Guinea (1.92).

The significant drops of Afghanistan and Myanmar in the index were due to the takeover of their governments by the Taliban and the military, respectively, in 2021.

“EIU’s 2021 Democracy Index report reflects the continuing negative impact of COVID-19 on democracy and freedom around the world for a second successive year,” said Joan Hoey, editor of this year’s report. The index has been published since 2006.

“Although Asia has struggled to sustain the upwards momentum that it had established up to 2016, experiencing its second consecutive decline in its overall regional average score, the Asia and Australasia region still has five ‘full democracies’ including three Asian ones (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) alongside Australia and New Zealand,” he added.

The latest index found that the number of “full democracies” fell from 23 to 21, while “flawed democracies” increased by one to 53.

“Authoritarian regimes” increased from 57 to 59, while 34 are classified as “hybrid regimes,” down from 35 in 2020.

Among those that changed categories were Chile and Spain (from full to flawed democracies); Mexico, Paraguay and Tunisia (from flawed democracies to hybrid regimes); and Kyrgyz Republic, Haiti and Lebanon (from hybrid to authoritarian regimes). – Louise Maureen Simeon