Corruption index: Philippines slips to 115th

By Helen Flores(Philstar.com), 30 Jan 2021

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines dropped two spots in the 2020 Corruption Perception Index (CPI) drawn up by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International.

Tied with Moldova for 115th place out of 180 countries and territories included in the report released before the weekend, the Philippines retained its score of 34 out of 100, below the global average of 43.

The CPI uses a scale of 0 or “highly corrupt” to 100 or “very clean.” The Philippines ranked 113th in 2019.

“Efforts to control corruption in the Philippines appear mostly stagnant since 2012,” Transparency International said. “The government’s response to COVID-19 has been characterized by abusive enforcement and major violations of human rights and media freedom.”

President Duterte has been touting to eradicate corruption in the government during his term. He had warned state employees involved in corruption to expect dismissal and criminal charges.

Meanwhile, Denmark and New Zealand continued to top the CPI, both obtaining scores of 88, a point increase from 2019.

Finland, Switzerland, Singapore and Sweden were tied at 3rd place with a score of 85.

Meanwhile, Somalia and South Sudan, which obtained scores of 12, were deemed the most corrupt, followed by Syria (14), Yemen (15) and Venezuela (15).