The way we are

During the past two weeks, we became privy to the findings of significant surveys conducted on three important country indicators: corruption, ease of doing business and quality of life. Evidently, these indicators are inter-linked as a high level of corruption usually translates to less business which, in turn, impacts the general quality of life in society. 

These surveys are important for the Philippines in two ways: First, they provide a benchmark for the country’s performance vis a vis that of others; and second, they provide a glimpse of how we are perceived by the outside world. And depending on whether you are a “half full” or “half empty” type of a person (although in this instance, it looks more like a 1/4 full and 3/4 empty situation), you may feel embarrassed being a Filipino or you may view our dismal ratings as a challenge to truly improve our ways. Let’s briefly look at the survey results.

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Corruption: Transparency International (TI) ranked the Philippines in a 12th place tie from the bottom. We scored 2.4 (same score as we obtained last year) in TI’s corruption perception index (CPI) which measures the perception of corruption in a country on a scale of one to 10 – the lower the score, the more serious the corruption problem is. We obtained the same score as that of eight other countries: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Honduras, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Ukraine and Zimbabwe (not exactly a group you wish to be identified with). On the bright side however, we fared better than Somalia which got a score of 1.1 and is therefore perceived to be the most corrupt country in the world, followed by Myanmar and Afghanistan with scores of 1.4 and Iraq which scored 1.5. On the other hand, Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore are considered the least corrupt countries with a score of 9.3, followed by Scandinavian neighbors Finland and Sweden which scored 9.2 and Canada that logged an 8.9.

Interestingly, East Timor which was lagging behind the Philippines in previous surveys, fared better this year with a score of 2.5. This is probably due to the efforts of new PCGG Commissioner Gerard Mosquera who had been leading a USAID funded Anti-Corruption project in East Timor for the past three years. 

TI chairman Huguette Labelle commented that “these results signal that significantly greater efforts must go into strengthening governance across the globe. With the livelihoods of so many at stake, government’s commitments to anti-corruption, transparency and accountability must speak through their actions. Good governance is an essential part of the solution to the global policy challenges governments face today.” Amen.

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Ease in doing business: In the 2011 Doing Business Report prepared by the World Bank together with the International Finance Corporation, the Philippines ranked 148 out of 183 economies insofar as being perceived as a business friendly country. By way of comparison with our Asian neighbors, we were ranked higher than Laos and Myanmar but lower than Cambodia. Also our current standing is four notches lower than our rank last year. While the report noted improvements in the country insofar as the time it took to process business permits particularly in certain of its local government units which computerized their operations and set up one-stop shops for applicants, our weakness in enforcing contracts continued to pull our ranking down. Once again, Singapore retained its top rank for the fifth straight year as the easiest place to do business. But having said the latter, a case involving the Republic and PNB languishing in Singaporean courts for the past six years.

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Quality of life: The United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) annual Human Development Report ranked the Philippines in 97th place out of 169 countries in terms of quality of life. This is an improvement from our 105th place ranking in 2009 but still lower than our 90th place performance in 2008. The UN study seeks to go beyond GDP, GNP and income statistics. Its Human Development Index (HDI) tracks other performance indicators such as quality of health and educational facilities, life expectancy as well as the state of political freedoms. 

Once again, Norway topped the study followed by Australia, New Zealand and the United States. African countries occupied the bottom ranks with our corruption survey colleague, Zimbabwe, occupying the 169th slot. The study also listed the top 10 “Movers” which are the countries that made the greatest progress in HDI terms in recent decades. These countries include China, Nepal, Indonesia Laos and South Korea. Now this is a group we should be associated with.

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Since good government is the cornerstone of our new Aquino administration, we are hopeful that our ranking in these important surveys will be dramatically improving in the next six years.

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New look: As highlighted in previous columns, the 2011 Bar Examinations under Justice Roberto Abad will have a new look. Multiple choice questions and lawyering skills essays will be introduced. To prepare 2011 barristers and law students for this new format, the FEU Institute of Law together with the Center for Global Best Practices (CGBP) will be holding a one day seminar on “Best Test Taking Practices for the New Bar and Law School Exams” on Sunday, Dec. 5, 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m. at the new FEU Makati building along Gil Puyat (Buendia) avenue. For more information on the seminar, you may visit CGBP’s website at www.cgbp.org, email Ivy Enriquez at i[email protected] or call 8427148 or 59.

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“Don’t tell me how rough the sea is, just bring the ship in.” — Ron Washington

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