Is the Philippines appearing to be less corrupt?
Yes, but just a little bit. The country scored slightly higher in the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index released by Transparency International yesterday.
The Philippines moved from 34 points in 2017 to 36 points in 2018.
Despite the improvement, the Philippines’ score was still far from the average score in the Asia-Pacific which was 44.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo welcomed the news and quickly credited President Rodrigo Duterte for the country’s improvement in the index. He said that in Duterte’s quest to rid the government of corruption, he has “fired military and high officials, including his longtime friends and allies.”
The index is a ranking of 180 countries and territories based on their perceived levels of government corruption from the perspective of businesspeople and experts. It uses a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being the most corrupt and 100 considered very clean. This year, two-thirds of the countries listed scored below 50.
Retaining the top spot as the least corrupt country in the world is Denmark, which had 88 points. It was followed by New Zealand (87), Finland (85), and Singapore (85), the highest ranking Asian country in the list.
Other Asian countries and territories that ranked well include Hong Kong (76), Japan (73), Brunei Darussalam (63), and Taiwan (63).
