The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
The Philippines posted an improvement of more than 5 percent in its score in the 2016 perception survey conducted by the international think tank Political & Economic Risk Consultancy Ltd (PERC), the highest among covered developing countries.
Citing the results of the survey, the government’s Investor Relations Office (IRO) said the Philippines got a score of 7.05 points this year.
The survey asked respondents, who were residents and expats of the covered countries, to grade corruption in the countries they were in, from zero to 10, with the former being the best.
In 2015, the Philippines got a score of 7.43 points on the same survey, which covers 16 countries—14 in Asia, the United States and Australia.
This enabled the country to jump from top 12 last year to top 10 this year, with the country’s score this year being its highest so far.
The IRO said the country’s score this year was the highest among the covered developing countries namely China, 7.5 points; Cambodia, 7.75; Thailand, 7.67; Vietnam, 7.92; Indonesia, 8.0; and India,8.13.
”The Philippines was the only country we surveyed where there was an improvement of more than five percent [in the score]. This is an example of how leadership really can make a difference,” PERC said in its 2016 survey report, titled “Asian Intelligence,” released recently.
Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima was elated with the survey result, noting that “over the past six years, we have registered marked improvements across every significant indicator and international ranking.”
“It’s clear as day: President Aquino’s good governance agenda has driven up this virtuous cycle,” he said.
“With the wind on our backs, we ought to double down on rooting out corruption—the better to optimize our public resources to invest in our people,” he added.
The IRO said this development was positive for the country since this was among the factors credit rating agencies used to gauge a country’s credit worthiness.
“This is because results of this survey are used as inputs to the Word Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs), which in turn are used by credit rating agencies in assessing creditworthiness of economies,” it added.