Philippine policemen flag down a motorist at a checkpoint in Quezon City. (Photo by TED ALJIBE / AFP)
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine National Police (PNP) on Friday disputed findings of international magazine Global Finance which placed the country dead last among 134 countries in terms of safety.
In Global Finance’s ranking of the world’s safest countries, the Philippines again was at the bottom of its list, replicating its 2019 placement when the magazine evaluated 128 nations.
The magazine said it took into account three fundamental factors to determine the countries’ safety scores — war and peace, personal security, and natural disaster risk, including factors stemming from the COVID-19.
But Police chief Guillermo Eleazar claimed the report is not accurate insofar as crime is concerned, saying in the country’s crime statistics has ‘greatly’ improved.
“Hindi tumutugma ang aming crime statistics sa ranking na ito,” Eleazar said in a statement.
(Our crime statistics does not match the results of the ranking.)
“Araw-araw kaming naglabas ng crime situation sa ating bansa noong nakaraang taon kung saan makikita ang napakalaking ibinababa ng mga krimen,” he added.
(We released the crime situation in our country every day last year when a huge decline in crime was observed.)
Eleazar said that the country saw a decrease in eight focus crimes, particularly murder, homicide, rape, physical injury, robbery, theft, carnapping of motor vehicles, and carnapping of motorcycles.
He added that the crime volume declined by half with theft and robbery posted the most significant reduction at 60 percent.
The police chief also noted that natural disasters beyond the government’s control such as the Taal Volcano eruption and the presence of local insurgent groups are a big factor in the ranking.
Several factors like war and peace, personal security, and natural disaster risk such as the risk factors from the COVID-19 were considered in the ranking.
“Nevertheless, we will take this latest ranking as a challenge to do more in terms of further improving the peace and order security in the country,” he said.