By TESS BACALLA
THE lack of a formal access to information regime and a party-list election system that breeds cronyism and corruption in the political process are major challenges that continue to confront the Philippines. This, despite some impressive world-class anti-corruption safeguards such as formal “cooling-off” employment periods for senior officials leaving government.
According to the latest Global Integrity Report released today, the Philippines is “very weak” in public access to information, scoring only 58 (on a scale of zero, which is the lowest, to 100) on this specific indicator.
Global Integrity, the Washington D.C.-based independent and nonprofit organization, tracks corruption and governance in 92 countries. It prides itself on referenced, peer-reviewed expert assessments of specific indicators of the state of anti-corruption and governance systems across countries.
To date, the Philippines has no institutional mechanism that would facilitate public access to such records. Statutory limits to the constitutional right to public information such as information relating to national security have not helped. Persistent efforts to push for the passage of the proposed Right to Information Act, which is expected to address this lack, have not been successful either.
The House of Representatives last year passed the proposed legislation on third reading, but the bill remains at the committee level in the Senate.
The 2008 Global Integrity Report also noted the absence of an effective party-list system in the Philippines that would allow genuine representation of the marginalized sectors. It cited as proof the outcome of the May 2007 elections.
Only six of the 17 party-list groups that made a successful bid for Congress were considered truly representative of those sectors. “The rest of the party-list groups represent elitist interests and are accused of getting their position with a mix of fraud, influence peddling, and heavy advertising,” said the report.
On a more positive note, improvements in the transparency surrounding government procurement remain promising, and civil society groups continue to play an important role in the debate around governance reforms.
The country received an overall rating of “moderate” (or 71 out of 100, up 4 points from its overall score last year) on the Global Integrity Index. Index ratings range from very weak to moderate and very strong.
Global Integrity assesses countries using more than 300 integrity indicators, which revolve around anti-corruption and governance systems. Rather than measure perceptions of corruption, its report assesses the accountability mechanisms and transparency measures in place—or not— to prevent corruption. Gaps in those safeguards suggest where corruption is more likely to occur.
Citizens’ access to information is a major component of these indicators alongside the existence of public integrity mechanisms and their effectiveness.
Worldwide, poor regulation over political financing remains the No. 1 governance challenge around the world for the third year in a row. Rich and poor countries alike struggle with this problem, according to the report.
In contrast, Philippine restrictions on financial donations to candidates and parties from those doing business with the government “are an interesting and rare regulation internationally.”
“If we’re serious about rolling back corruption and abuse of power in both the developed and developing worlds, more effective safeguards to curb the influence of money in politics are desperately needed,” said Global Integrity’s managing director, Nathaniel Heller.
One such safeguard is increasing transparency around donations to political parties and candidates, said Global Integrity.
“Without basic transparency mechanisms in place, citizens and businesses have no way to monitor government budgets or public procurement; have no way of knowing which companies or countries are funding the campaigns of their elected leaders; and lack the basic tools to monitor the performance of other key anti-corruption bodies such as audit agencies and anti-corruption commissions,” explained the report.
Despite its grim performance on the access to information and party-list system integrity indicators, the Philippines still emerged as one of the “gainers” in the 2008 Global Integrity Report. The others are Bangladesh (+4 from 2007), China (+5 from 2007), Moldova (+8 from 2007), Nepal (+4 from 2007), Nigeria (+10 from 2007), and Russia (+5 from 2007).
China’s newly adopted Regulation on Disclosing Information led to higher scores not just in the Public Access to Information category but also in the transparency of procurement and privatization processes, which have benefited from the implementation of the new regulation.