THE Philippine government is disputing the result of a global survey by an international magazine based in the United States that placed the Philippines at the bottom of its list of ‘safest countries’ in the world for 2021.
In a media interview after the report by Global Finance magazine was released on July 6, 2021, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) secretary, Eduardo M. Año, said the report, covering 134 countries and where the magazine placed the Philippines at the bottom, should be taken “objectively” as its assessment also did not reflect the country’s actual peace and order situation.
“Kailangan very objective tayo. Mahirap pagbasehan lang natin itong survey ng ibang countries. Minsan may political factors behind,” the DILG said in an interview by radio station DZBB.
He noted that the country’s crime situation had steadily improved under Pres. Duterte, citing official data from the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Chief PNP P/Gen. Guillermo Tolentino Eleazar, for his part, also disputed the magazine’s report, noting the conclusion “did not match” their own records.
The report ranked the Philippines last on the list of 134 countries, with the lowest score of 14.8899.
“Hindi tumutugma ang aming crime statistics sa ranking na ito,” said a visibly annoyed Philippine National Police chief, P/Gen. Guillermo Tolentino Eleazar, referring to the Global Finance report.
According to the magazine, they had three fundamental factors in finding out if a country is safe.
These are “war, peace, personal security, natural disaster risk, and factors caused by the pandemic.”
In 2019, the magazine similarly placed the Philippines at the bottom of the 128 countries it purportedly covered.
Also reacting to the Global Finance magazine report, presidential spokesman, Atty Harry Roque, said, “While it is given that the Philippines is prone to natural hazards owing to its geographical location in the Pacific rim as well as due to climate change, our disaster management system continues to improve.
“The Filipino people are also growing more resilient and adaptive.”
What the statistics, other surveys showed
“Hindi tumutugma ang aming crime statistics sa ranking na ito,” said a visibly annoyed Eleazar, referring to the Global Finance report.
He emphasized that last year, the PNP released statistics regarding the crime situation in the country every single day that showed a significant decline in crime rates.
Additionally, he stated that the crime volume in the Philippines declined to over half with theft and robbery down by 60 percent from the previous year.
The PNP also earlier reported that there was a decrease of 39.59 percent in the eight focus crimes in 2020 compared to the previous year.
The PNP chief also cited the latest Gallup survey that showed the Philippines is actually among the top 40 safest countries in the world.
Eleazar was referring to the 2020 Global Law and Order survey by the respected US pollster, ‘Gallup,’ which ranked the Philippines as among the world’s top 40 “safest countries” based on available data for 2019, the year Global Finance also placed the Philippines at the bottom of its list.
In the Gallup poll, that covered 144 countries, the Philippines is tied with Australia, New Zealand, Poland, and Serbia with a law-and-order index score of 84 and was ranked in the top 40 safest countries list.
That the Global Finance survey cannot be relied upon is also disputed by the result of the ‘Global Peace Index’ (GPI) for 2021 released by the ‘Institute for Economic and Peace’ that placed Afghanistan, not the Philippines, as the ‘least safe’ or most dangerous country in the world, along with Yemen, Syria, South Sudan and Iraq.
In the GPI report, the Philippines was ranked 127th, five notches lower than the United States, which was ranked 122nd from the 163 countries surveyed. The Philippines got a score of 2.417, compared to 2.337 for the United States and 3.631 for Afghanistan.
Topping the list of the most peaceful country in the GPI report is Iceland, with a score of 1.1, followed by New Zealand, with a score of 1.253, and, Denmark with a score of 1.256.
Compared to the US magazine, the GPI report was more comprehensive as it tallies “a composite index measuring the peacefulness of countries made up of 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators each weighted on a scale of 1-5.” The lower the score the more peaceful the country.
On the other hand, the Institute for Economic and Peace likes to pride itself as “an independent, non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable and tangible measure of human wellbeing and progress.”
The Palace on July 9, 2021, also said it was “optimistic that things would be better,” citing the country’s progress on vaccination, crime suppression and disaster management.