September 4, 2025
MANILA – For over a decade, the Philippines has remained at the lower range of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
The CPI is a measurement of how business leaders and experts perceive corruption in the public sector, with scores ranging from zero, which indicates a highly corrupt environment, to 100, which indicates a very clean environment.
Dr. Rogelio Alicor Panao, Inquirer Metrics data scientist and associate professor at the University of the Philippines, noted the changes in the country’s scores throughout the years.
Panao said that there were only small changes in CPI scores, but he pointed out the country’s “broader pattern” as its scores ranged between 33 and 38 from 2012 to 2024.
GRAPHICS: PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER
The index showed that the Philippines ranked 114th out of 180 countries in 2024, as it scored 33, a slight drop from its score of 34 in 2023.
Transparency International’s data also showed that the Philippines scored the highest during this period in 2014, with a score of 38.
Aside from 2024, the country also scored the lowest in 2021 and 2022.
“Compared with high integrity countries in the region, like Singapore (83), and New Zealand (85), the Philippines remains in the lower-middle range, closer to countries also grappling with government challenges,” Panao said.
The figure also showed that these countries scoring low on the corruption index from 2023-2024 are North Korea (17), Myanmar (20), Afghanistan (20), Cambodia (22), Bangladesh (24), Laos (28), Pakistan and Papua New Guinea (29), Mongolia (33), Sri Lanka and Indonesia (34), Nepal and Thailand (35), and India and Maldives (39), among others.
GRAPHICS: PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER
Panao then raised this: “If the numbers have not moved for more than a decade, perhaps the harder question is whether we, as citizens, have moved enough to demand better.”
With the Philippines’ low placement in the index, Panao said that the “ghost” flood control projects in the country have “once again raised questions about corruption in the Philippines,” emphasizing that as an issue reflected in the CPI of Transparency International.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. earlier revealed that only P100 billion of the entire P545-billion budget for flood mitigation projects from July 2022 to May 2025 was awarded to 15 out of 2,409 accredited contractors.
While Marcos said that the findings were a “disturbing assessment,” and did not make any accusations about the private contractors, he said that they “stood out very much.” /atm