THE QUALITY of democracy in the Philippines has been “adversely affected” on the watch of President Rodrigo R. Duterte, with the country ranking 51st in a 2017 global democracy index on 165 states by an affiliate of The Economist.

The report released by the The Economist Intelligence Unit (The EIU), the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, also continued to classify the Philippines as a “flawed democracy,” alongside the United States, Japan, and Philippine neighbors Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

The other three regime types in the report are “full democracy” (e.g. the United Kingdom, Germany, and topnotcher Norway) “hybrid regime” (e.g. Thailand, Iraq, Pakistan) and “authoritarian regime” (e.g. China, Myanmar, Vietnam).

The Philippines’ current place is a notch down from its 2016 ranking. The country ranked eighth in its region, where the report also noted “declines” in the state of democracy.

“Australia and New Zealand remained the only two “full democracies” in the region as a whole. Asia’s two largest emerging democracies, India and Indonesia, suffered significant declines in their scores and fell down the rankings in our latest assessment,” the report said.

It further noted: “Asian democracies had a tumultuous year. A region that had made rapid progress up the rankings in recent years experienced the biggest decline of all regions between 2016 and our latest assessment for 2017.”

“Governments and powerful political and business interests in many Asian countries use defamation laws and related criminal provisions to punish criticism in the media, clamping down on critical commentary on social media.”

In terms of press freedom, the Philippines had a score of 7 on a scale of 0 to 10 and its media freedom status was ranked as “partly free.”

The Philippines also scored 9.17 in electoral process and pluralism, 5.71 in functioning of government, 7.22 in political participation, 4.38 in political culture, and 7.06 in civil liberties.

On the other hand, the Philippines placed 8th in the regional ranking (Asia & Australasia), one point up from its 2016 ranking.

In its country assessment of the Philippines, the report said “the indefinite declaration of martial law in the southern state of Mindanao in the Philippines, and the rule of (the) country’s strongman leader, Rodrigo Duterte, adversely affected the quality of democracy in the Philippines. Mr. Duterte has led the way among the many Asian countries that are infringing (on) democratic values.”

The report also noted that in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines, “journalists face physical and death threats on a regular basis.”

Mr. Duterte himself “has castigated journalists and even issued death threats. The country has a history of repression of the media and violence against journalists. Mr. Duterte has managed to make an already bad situation even worse for the media in the Philippines,” the report said.

Sought for comment, Presidential Spokesperson Herminio Harry L. Roque, Jr. said: “One notch lower is nothing.”

Globally, the average score in the 2017 index “fell from 5.52 in 2016 to 5.48 (on a scale of 0 to 10).”

The report highlighted as well that “not a single region recorded an improvement in its average score compared with 2016.” — Arjay L. Balinbin

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