Philippines
Last official update: December 17, 2020
HRMI
Quality of Life rights (or ‘economic and social rights’) include the rights to food, health, education, housing, and work. The Philippines score 71.6% on Quality of Life when scored against the ‘Income adjusted’ benchmark. This score takes into account Philippines’ resources and how well it is using them to make sure their people’s Quality of Life rights are fulfilled.
This score tells us that the Philippines are only doing 71.6% of what should be possible right now with the resources they have. Since anything less than 100% indicates that a country is not meeting its current duty under international human rights law, our assessment is that the Philippines have a long way to go to meet their immediate economic and social rights duty.
Source: 2017 – Human Rights Measurement Initiative
ITUC
Ranking countries on the degree of respect for workers’ rights.
Source: 2019 – International Trade Union Confederation
GSI
The Prevalence Index Rank ranks countries on the relative prevalance of modern slavery. A higher rank indicates a higher prevalence.
Source: 2018 – Global Slavery Index
HIIK
The Conflict Barometer ranks intra-, inter-, trans- and substate conflicts worldwide based on intesity, including violent as well as non-violent conflicts. The violent conflicts are differentiated between violent crises, limited wars or wars.
Source: 2019 – Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research
IEP
The Global Peace Index (GPI) measures more than just the presence or absence of war. It captures the absence of violence or the fear of violence across three domains: Safety and Security, Ongoing Conflict, and Militarisation.
Source: 2020 – The Institute for Economics & Peace
Freedom House
Freedom House rates people’s access to political rights and civil liberties.
Source: 2020 – Freedom House
FSI
The Human Rights and Rule of Law Indicator by the FSI considers the relationship between the state and its population insofar as fundamental human rights are protected and freedoms are observed and respected.
Source: 2020 – Fragile State Index
WGI
Control of corruption captures perceptions of the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as “capture” of the state by elites and private interests.
Source: 2019 – The WorldBank's Worldwide Governance Indicator
Regulatory quality captures perceptions of the ability of the government to formulate and implement sound policies and regulations that permit and promote private sector development.
Source: 2019 – The WorldBank's Worldwide Governance Indicator
Rule of law captures perceptions of the extent to which agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of society, and in particular the quality of contract enforcement, property rights, the police, and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence.
Source: – The WorldBank's Worldwide Governance Indicator
Transparency International
The Corruption Perceptions Index scores and ranks countries/territories based on how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be by experts and business executives. It is a composite index, a combination of 13 surveys and assessments of corruption, collected by a variety of reputable institutions. The CPI is the most widely used indicator of corruption worldwide.
Source: 2019 – Transparency International
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Philippines Sector Reports
Areas of Interest
The Philippine have a CPI score of 34 (0=highly corrupt, 100=very clean) which means the risk of corruption is high.
Although it is prohibited by law to employ children under 15, child labour is a widespread problem in the Philippines. However, timber is not included in the list of goods produced using child labour and the list shows nof goods produced using forced labour.
Research executed by Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2018 found that women in the Philippines are in danger of trafficking includes forced labour. In the 2020 trafficking in persons report, the Philippines is classified as a Tier 1 country which means that the government meets the Trafficking Victims Protection Act’s minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
Discrimination at work is mentioned in relation to women, Indigenous peoples, LGTBI people, persons with disabilities and with HIV/AIDS.
According to the Freedom House Country List, the Philippines is considered “partly free” which means there is an oppressive regime regarding civil liberties. This includes arbitrary and unlawful interference with privacy (US Department of State, 2019f). Press freedom is limited; with a score of 45,54 (0=best possible score, 100=worst possible score) the country ranks 136 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. The US Department of State reports in 2019 that in the Philippines the worst forms of restrictions on free expression and the press, including violence, threats of violence, and unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, censorship, and the existence of criminal libel laws, are observed.
In the Philippines there are persistent issues regarding Indigenous peoples rights. Also, significant problems with the independence of the judiciary have been reported. In 2019, attacks against human rights defenders increased.
It’s reported that there’s a weak judicial system and inconsistent application of legislation, including on procurement, tax and land use, as the main political risk in the Philippines. The process is slow and there is low public trust and confidence in the judiciary.
The Filipino law protects the right to form and join trade unions, conduct legal strikes and bargain collectively, except for the military and police. Labour laws apply uniformly throughout the country. There is a difference in rights that apply for regular or permanent employees and short-term contractual labour. The use of short-term contractual labour is widespread in the Philippines, especially by large private sector companies. In the special economic zones, often non-permanent employment contracts are used (fixed-term, casual, temporary, seasonal) which, combined with restricted access to these zones, makes the organisation of unions little successful.
The Philippines is listed among the world’s ten worst countries for workers with violence and murder, arbitrary arrests and union busting (“red-tagging”) practices. The country scores a 5 on the ITUC Global Rights Index (scale 1-5) for freedom of association and workers’ rights which stands for no guarantee of rights. While legislation may include rights, in practice workers have no access to these rights and are therefore exposed to autocratic regimes and unfair labour practices. It is the country with the highest number of killings of human rights defenders in Asia: in 2015, ten human rights defenders were murdered.
There is a high fiduciary risk, meaning financial resources are not used for the intended purpose, effectively or are not properly accounted for. The government’s weak public financial management and procurement systems is shown by a weak procurement and regulatory framework, inefficient budget execution, lack of budget credibility, poor strategic allocation of resources and weak internal controls, accounting and reporting. All of the above are linked to a weak revenue and tax administration, despite administration’s reforms.
The Philippines is considered a ‘high risk’ country for terroristic attacks on the Aon Terrorism Risk Map, considered as level 4 (1-5 scale).
Among significant human rights issues reported in 2019 are unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings, by and on behalf of the government and nonstate actors as well as reports of forced disappearance, torture and arbitrary detention by and on behalf of the government and nonstate actors plus harsh and life-threatening prison conditions. During a recent campaign against illegal drugs, the government illegally killed thousands of suspected drug dealers and users. Authorities and the police are not held accountable for human rights violations. Finally, there is unlawful recruitment or use of child soldiers by terrorists and groups in rebellion against the Filipino government.