RP sinks lower in corruption index

THE Philippines was ranked 12th most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International in 2010, down from last year when it was placed 113th, according to the group’s Corruption Perceptions Index released Tuesday.

The index is a measure of domestic public sector corruption that uses various indexes and polls developed by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy.

The CPI scores the perception of corruption in a country on a scale of one to 10, with a score of one indicating a serious corruption problem.

This year’s survey by the non-government organization covered 178 countries, down from 180 last year. With governments worldwide needing huge sums of money to tackle problems such as climate change, the instability of financial markets and poverty, corruption remains an obstacle to achieving progress, Transparency International says.

“These results signal that significantly greater efforts must go into strengthening governance across the globe,” group chairman Huguette Labelle says.

“With the livelihoods of so many at stake, governments’ 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.”

The Philippines scored 2.4 this year, the same score it got last year. Eight other countries were ranked 12th or scored 2.4: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Honduras, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo, Ukraine and Zimbabwe.

Somalia was perceived to be the most corrupt with a score of 1.1, followed by Myanmar and Afghanistan with a score of 1.4, and Iraq with a score of 1.5.

Unstable governments with a legacy of conflict dominated the bottom rungs of the corruption index, the watchdog group says.

Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore were perceived to be the least corrupt countries with a score of 9.3, followed by Finland and Sweden that scored 9.2. Canada was perceived to be the third least corrupt nation with a score of 8.9.

Bhutan, Chile, Ecuador, Macedonia, Gambia, Jamaica, Kuwait and Qatar showed some improvement, while the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Madagascar, Niger and the United States saw a decline in their scores.

Transparency International called for a stricter implementation of the UN Convention against Corruption, the only global initiative that provides a framework for putting an end to corruption.

“Allowing corruption to continue is unacceptable; too many poor and vulnerable people continue to suffer its consequences around the world,” Labelle says.

“We need to see more enforcement of existing rules and laws. There should be nowhere to hide for the corrupt or their money.”

Among the 36 industrialized countries that signed the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development anti-bribery convention, as many as 20 showed little or no enforcement of the rules, sending the wrong signal about their commitment to curb corrupt practices, Transparency International says.

Eileen Mencias, Philippine Star