The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an American government aid agency, has restricted aid flowing to the Philippines due to concerns about corruption. The MCC is setting aside a prior decision to promote the country from “Threshold” to “Compact” aid status, which would have secured significant funding for development projects. The decision appears largely based on the World Bank Institute‘s aggregation of corruption perception surveys, which report a worsening public perception of corruption problems.
The Global Integrity data on the Philippines (2007, 2006, 2004), which examines the anti-corruption framework rather than public perceptions of corruption, show consistent — though not very good — performance in recent years. As we note on the cover of our 2007 report, an overall score change from 2006 to 2007 is not a trend, but reflects the inclusion of a new investigation of state-owned enterprises, an area where the Philippines performs poorly.
The head of America’s chief global poverty-fighting arm said indications of worsening corruption in the Philippines is blocking the way to hundreds of millions of dollars in additional help. John Danilovich, Chief Executive Officer of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), said they have “serious concerns” with corruption indicators for the Philippines. “The drop in performance was in fact very dramatic,” he told reporters during a briefing at the Foreign Press Center here on Wednesday, January 30.
