The 2021 Democracy Index released last week by London-based think tank The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) saw the Philippines improving a notch, ranking 54th out of 167 countries. It ranked 55th in the 2020 index, 54th in 2019, 53rd in 2018 and 51st in 2017.
Based on the report, the Philippines remains a “flawed democracy,” defined as countries that have free and fair elections and basic civil liberties are respected, although there are significant weaknesses in some aspects of democracy, including governance, political culture and participation.
“Flawed democracy” is second among four regime types used by the EIU in its annual index, after “full democracy” and before “hybrid” and “authoritarian” regimes.
According to the EIU, the Philippines scored a total of 6.62 out of the highest possible score of 10. Among the indicators used, the country scored the highest in electoral processes and pluralism (9.17), followed by political participation (7.78), civil liberties (6.76), functioning of government (5.0) and political culture (4.38).
The Philippines ranked 10 among countries in Asia and Australasia – from 9th last year after Indonesia showed significant improvement in its overall score.
“Although Asia has struggled to sustain the upwards momentum that it had established up to 2016, experiencing its second consecutive decline in its overall regional average score, the Asia and Australasia region still has five ‘full democracies’ including three Asian ones (Japan, South Korea and Taiwan) alongside Australia and New Zealand,” Joan Hoey, editor of this year’s report said.
Our flawed democracy will be conducting elections in a few months. Let us keep in mind that the quality and virtues of the leaders we choose will determine whether our democracy improves or slips further into the “hybrid” or God forbid, an “authoritarian” regime.
Let us keep in mind that the work in progress that is the flawed democracy of the Philippines should be always moving towards the achievement of a full democracy instead of losing it due to a poor choice of leaders whose priorities are different from a people who want more of the freedoms and protections that such a government can offer.*
