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MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has continued to slump in the global corruption perception index for 2021, placing 117th out of 180 countries, down two places from its 2020 ranking, according to Transparency International.
In the anti-corruption watchdog’s latest Corruption Perception Index (CPI), the Philippines has a score of 33 out of 100, meaning it scored less in 2021 than in 2020.
But aside from that, Transparency International saw a link in corruption between human rights abuses, as “highly corrupt countries” like the “significant declined” the Philippines “accounts for almost all of the murdered human rights defenders around the world.”
“With a score of 33, the Philippines is a significant decliner, having lost 5 points since 2014. Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has also seen a sharp decline in freedom of association and freedom of expression, making it harder to speak up about corruption,” Transparency International said in their report obtained by INQUIRER.net on Monday.
“In 2020, it was the country with the second-highest number of murdered human rights defenders, with a total of 25 deaths,” it added.
READ: PH drops to 115th place in global index on corruption perception
After landing in the 113th spot in the 2019 version of Transparency International’s study, the Philippines continues to slide down. This was after its 99 rank in 2018; 95th in 2015 or a year before Duterte took office and 85th in 2014 or during the term of former president Benigno Aquino III.
READ: Corruption worsens: PH falls 14 notches to 113th spot in global index 2019
READ: PH slips in global corruption index—report
The current rankings of the Philippines mean it is tied with countries like Egypt, Nepal, and Zambia for the 117th rank.
On the other hand, Denmark is still the country perceived to be least corrupt, sharing the top spot with Finland jumped one spot and New Zealand. Norway, Singapore, and Sweden share the fourth spot, Switzerland at seventh, the Netherlands at eighth, Luxembourg at ninth, and Germany at 10th.
Across the Southeast Asian region, the Philippines bests only three countries — Laos (128th), Myanmar (140th), and Cambodia (157th). Thailand (110th) is nearest to the Philippines, followed by Indonesia (96th), Vietnam (87th), Timor-Leste (82nd), Malaysia (62nd), and Singapore (4th).
Transparency International relayed that the results of the CPI for 2021 were obtained by aggregating data from different sources that “provide perceptions among business people and country experts of the level of corruption in the public sector”.
“The CPI 2021 is calculated using 13 different data sources from 12 different institutions that capture perceptions of corruption within the past two years,” Transparency International said.
“This [standardization] is done by subtracting the mean of each source in the baseline year from each country score, then dividing by the standard deviation of that source in the baseline year. This subtraction and division using the baseline year parameters [ensure] that the CPI scores are comparable year on year since 2012,” it added.