MANILA, 14 March 2007 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and business leaders yesterday said a survey by a Hong Kong-based think-tank tagging the Philippines as Asia’s “most corrupt economy” is no longer accurate.
“They don’t work on up-to-date data,” Arroyo said in reaction to the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) survey showing the Philippines at the bottom of a list of 13 countries in terms of the perception of corruption of business executives.
PERC said the index was based on the views of close to 1,500 expatriate businessmen in the region.
“Our credit ratings are fine,” Arroyo told Business News Asia magazine. “The political analysis, they work on old data.
Officials of the influential Makati Business Club (MBC) said that while corruption remained pervasive in the Philippines, many of their members perceive the issue of corruption to be easing.
MBC Executive Director Alberto Lim said that, in some cases, the issue of corruption had eased.
“For example, we are closely monitoring the case of ghost deliveries of textbooks (in the public school system),” he said, referring to earlier findings which revealed a 40-percent rate of non-delivery. “That (problem) has gone away.”
“I’m not defending this government, but to say that we’re the most corrupt is probably not accurate,” said Lim, adding that the survey’s respondents were likely making their judgments “from afar” without the benefit of on-the-ground experience.
He said the survey respondents were probably saying that the Philippines has not been catching the big fish.
The MBC is the outspoken umbrella organization of the country’s largest corporations and has, in the past, taken controversial positions, such as asking for the resignation of President Arroyo at the height of the vote rigging controversy in 2005.
Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) executive director Leonilo Coronel, said that foreign businessmen may have made conclusions about the country based on certain high-profile corruption cases.
“I think corruption is endemic all around Asia. It’s just that there have been cases here that been in the limelight like the Piatco case,” he said, referring to the controversy surrounding the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s terminal 3 building. “Admittedly, that stinks,” he said.
Coronel said, however, that the experience on the ground was different from the perception of businessmen abroad. “What’s their basis for saying we’re the most corrupt in Asia?” he said.
Still, Lim said that both the government and the private sector should view the survey results as a challenge for the country.
“We have to use it to increase out resolve,” he said. “We should improve our competitiveness and this should give us the impetus to work harder.” In particular, Lim said that private citizens should be enlisted in the anti-corruption drive and be given more means to be involved in the fight against it.
PERC, which advises companies and governments, said the poor ratings for the Philippines were more linked to frustration than any actual worsening in corruption. “It is bad and has been bad all along,” it said in its report. “People are just growing tired of the inaction and insincerity of leading officials when they promise to fight corruption.”
Constancia de Guzman, head of the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission, insisted the Philippines was taking action.
“The government is doing something,” she told journalists, “but the people want to see actual results like convictions, dismissals and the like.” (With input from Agencies & Inquirer News Service)
