World Bank Governance Indicators for the Philippines (1996 to 2006)

From the beginning, Gloria Arroyo has used the mantra of Good Governance to set her administration apart from her predecessor. In her inauguration speech before the EDSA Dos crowd, Gloria Arroyo declared that:

"To ensure that our gains are not dissipated through corruption, we must improve moral standards. As we do so, we create fertile ground for good governance based on a sound moral foundation, a philosophy of transparency, and an ethic of effective implementation."

Six years is more than enough time to judge her ability to deliver on the above which can now be evaluated using the World Bank's Governance Indicators that measures a Country's quality of governance based on six dimensions:

• Control of Corruption
• Government Effectiveness
• Political Stability
• Regulatory Quality
• Rule of Law, and
• Voice and Accountability

The country being measured is assigned a value between -2.5 and 2.5 on each of the above attributes, with the higher value representing better quality governance. These indices are computed using inputs from multiple sources. The most recent edition of this report is the...

Worldwide Governance Indicators: 1996-2006

...which was released in July 2007. The Report (pdf format) can be downloaded here. I have taken the index values for Philippines and converted these into line-graphs as follows (click on the images to enlarge):





Click on images to enlarge
By the above measures, Gloria Arroyo compares poorly with her predecessors as well as with her contemporaries in the other 212 countries being measured.