MAYPAJO, Caloocan City — It is unfortunate that our country—said to be the cradle of heroes and lovers of democracy—is now perceived to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Of 180 nations around the globe, the Philippines ranked 116 in terms of being least corrupt. This means that the country is almost on the top one-third of the most corrupt countries, based on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) published by Transparency International.
According to CPI, our country scored a total of 33 points out of 100 and even as far back as 2012, we fluctuated around the same CPI score, with the highest score being 38 points in 2014 and the lowest being 33 points in 2021 and 2022.
To get a better picture of how low this score is, the regional average CPI score for the Asia-Pacific region is 45, with zero as highly corrupt. And of the 31 countries and territories in the region, the Philippines placed 22nd (tied with Mongolia).
It must be noted, though, that CPI measures perceptions of corruption and is not necessarily the reality of the state of corruption in a country. CPI reflects the views of experts or surveys of business people on a number of corrupt behavior in the public sector (such as bribery, diversion of public funds, nepotism in the civil service, use of public office for private gain, etc.).
Besides this, CPI also measures the available mechanisms to prevent corruption, such as enforcement mechanisms, effective prosecution of corrupt officials, red tape, laws on adequate financial disclosure and legal protection for whistleblowers.
These data are taken from other international organizations, such as the World Bank, World Economic Forum, private consulting companies and think tanks.
Of course, measuring actual corruption is quite difficult, especially as it involves under-the-table activities that are only discovered when they are divulged and prosecuted, like in the case of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth, which was estimated to be up to US$10 billion based on now-deleted Guinness World Records and cited as the “biggest robbery of a government.”
Nevertheless, there still exists a correlation between corruption and corruption perceptions.
Corruption does not come in a single form as well. In a 2007 study, political scientist and Colgate University professor emeritus Michael Johnston studied four syndromes (categories) of corruption that were predominant in Asia, citing Japan, Korea, China and the Philippines as prime examples of each category.
The first category is known as market corruption, wherein politicians peddle their influence to provide connections to other people, essentially serving as middlemen.
The second category is elite cartel corruption, wherein there exist networks of elites that may collude to protect their economic and political advantages.
The third form of corruption is the official mogul corruption, wherein economic moguls (or their clients) are usually the top political figures and face few constraints from the state or their competitors.
Finally, there is the form of corruption that the Philippines is familiar with. Here, oligarch-and-clan corruption is present as in countries with major political and economic liberalization and weak institutions. Corruption of this kind has been characterized as having “disorderly, sometimes violent scramble among contending oligarchs seeking to parlay personal resources into wealth and power.”
In the Philippine scene, oligarch-and-clan corruption manifests itself in the political system, where there is difficulty in determining what is public and what is private (i.e., who is a politician and who is an entrepreneur). Oligarchs attempt to use their power for their private benefit or the benefit of their families. From the Aquinos, Binays, Dutertes, Roxases and, most notoriously, the Marcoses, our country is no stranger to political families.
In a 2017 chart by genealogist Todd Cabrera Lucero, he traced the lineage of Philippine presidents and noted them to be either related by affinity or consanguinity.

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