REVERSE ENGINEERING OF LOCAL & INTERNATIONAL SURVEYS ON CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES

REVERSE ENGINEERING OF LOCAL & INTERNATIONAL SURVEYS ON CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES A Project funded under the Transparent Accountable Governance (TAG) Project of The Asia Foundation with support from the United States Agency for International Development April to June, 2006

Background • Several studies and surveys showing the Philippines as one of the most corrupt countries have been many times over quoted in media. • These reports have painted the image of a graft-ridden country and a government seemingly powerless over corruption • The most prominent of these agencies which regularly conducts studies on corruption in the Philippines are: • Social Weather Stations, Inc. • Pulse Asia, Inc. • Ibon Foundation, Inc. • Makati Business Club • Political Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) Ltd. • Transparency International (TI)

Rationale • There is a need to review current studies and surveys being conducted measuring corruption in the Philippines. • It would be important to know what their methodologies are, who their key respondents are, how they gather the data and how they analyze their data sets. • It would be pertinent to mine the data generated by these studies and surveys. • The information culled will aid both government and non-government agencies in zeroing in its efforts to address corruption on segments of the population most sensitive to this issue. • It will give better directions as to where concentrated efforts to curb corruption are vital. • It will pro-actively identify factors affecting perceptions of corruption and facets of corruption in the country and serve as a beacon to anti-corruption efforts.

Methods Used • Gathering of materials, reports, raw data (both soft and hard copies if made accessible) from these respective institutions: • Social Weather Stations (SWS) • Pulse Asia Inc. • IBON Foundation, Inc. • Makati Business Club (MBC) • Political Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) • Transparency International (TI)

Methods Used (continued) • Data gathering on what’s available on the internet. The following websites were sources of many materials: • www.sws.org.ph/ • www.pulseasia.com.ph/ • www.ibon.org/ • www.mbc.com.ph/ • www.asiarisk.com/ • ww1.transparency.org/ • www.transparency.ph/

Methods Used (continued) • In-depth interviews with the following key informants: • Mr. Robert Broadfoot, PERC Managing Director • Judge Dolores Espanol, Transparency Intl RP Chapter • Mr. Antonio Tujan Jr., Ibon Foundation, Inc. • Ms. Rosario Bella Guzman, Ibon Foundation, Inc. Executive Director • Mr. Edward Gacusana, MBC Sr. Research Associate & CAC Proj. Coordinator • Mr. Michael Mundo, MBC Sr. Research Associate & Chief Economist • Ms. Linda Luz Guerrero, SWS VP & Chief Operating Officer • Mr. Jay Sandoval, SWS Director of Sampling, Processing & Data Archiving Group • Ms. Germie Caron, SWS Field Specialist • Mr. Jojo Carlom, Pulse Asia Statistics Supervisor • Ms. Zon Langrio, TNS-Trends Field Director • Mr. Angel Almojuela, Asia Research Organization (ARO) President

Methods Used (continued) • Review of written reports • SWS Survey of Enterprises • Pulse Asia Ulat ng Bayan visuals • PERC reports • Transparency International reports • Further statistical analysis of raw data made available by: • SWS and Pulse Asia

Caveat • In the course of talking with key informants from these various research institutions, some have expressed plans to further modify and make improvements in their methodologies • Since the review of the surveys included in the study was from April to June 2006, any changes and improvements made by the various research institutions in their methods of data gathering data processing and data analysis after this period cannot be reflected here • The study does not intend to conclude which survey is more superior than others; rather it intends to give illumination on how these surveys are done and how the survey data can help in further advancing means of curbing corruption

SURVEYS ON CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES WITHVOTING-AGE ADULTSAS RESPONDENTS

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Methods

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Methods(continued)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Data Gathered

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Data Gathered(continued)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Statistical Tools Used

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Highlights of Findings

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Highlights of Findings(continued)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults:Public Dissemination

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults: Comments on SWS Methods • Allocation for non-quota provinces in Balance Luzon & Visayas should be reconsidered because this can slightly skew the sample since sampling done is not at the regional level • Urban area coverage using landmarks as starting points should be reviewed because it may tend to concentrate samples in urban centers • A separate group of Spot checkers (and not the Field Anchors) should be assigned to do quality control checks SWS Urban coverage: • Starting points are the ff: • Municipal or brgy hall • Public elem. school • Brgy. Capt.’s house • Catholic church or chapel

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults:Comments on Pulse Asia Methods • It may help to try and acquire the latest precinct maps of urban areas since 1990 COMELEC maps are still being used • Reconsider random selection of barangays since populations may now greatly vary among barangays in a municipality • Monitoring of substitution rates may be necessary

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults:Comments on IBON Survey Methods • There is a great need to be cautious of results from surveys IBON conducts because of the following: • Province selection does not consider population size • No uniform instructions on how to select sample households • Lack of a systematic means to select respondents in a household • Little quality control mechanisms • Having volunteers as interviewers may be disadvantageous to quality accomplishment of questionnaires • Individual personal translations in the vernacular languages by interviewers can lead to biases • No substitution or replacement rules • Tendency to be a haphazard survey of housewives (not adults)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Voting-Age Adults:Comments on TI Surveys conducted by ARO • Sample dispersion tends to be limited because of: • restricted number of provinces, cities/municipalities, barangays covered • shorter intervals applied between households when selecting them • greater number of households are included in a specific sample area • Sample bias is for urban areas given that population sizes here are bigger and thus have a greater probability of being included.

Generalizations on the validity of the surveys • SWS, Pulse Asia and ARO surveys can be considered scientific, valid measures of corruption with the following caveats: • SWS results in urban areas would tend to be affected given their area coverage method here • Pulse Asia results can be affected by high substitution rates • ARO results should only be interpreted at the national level and its results may tend to reflect urban sentiments • IBON surveys cannot be claimed to represent opinions of Filipino adults

Insights from Data Results • Statistical runs from available raw data indicate the ff: • Trust in institutions is critical to managing public perceptions on anti-corruption efforts • Media reports on corruption and media access have significant impacts on perceptions • Younger adults are more susceptible to negative perceptions on corruption • The upper and middle class tend to be most affected and most pessimistic about ability to resolve corruption • Surveys by and large do not have an exhaustive framework for critically looking into all possible predictors of opinions on government anti-corruption efforts • Survey items usually included are dependent on client’s or sponsor’s (or even the institution’s) priority needs for monitoring and are often restricted because of limited funding sources

SURVEYS ON CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES WITHBUSINESS LEADERS AS RESPONDENTS

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates Independent Institutes: TI CPI Sources for RP data

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates Independent Institutes: TI CPI Sources for RP data (continued)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates:Methods

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates: Methods(continued)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates:Methods(continued)

Surveys on Corruption among Businessmen or Expatriates: Methods(continued)

Surveys on Corruption among Businessmen or Expatriates: Data Gathered (continued)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates: Data Gathered(continued)

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates:Statistical Tools Used

Surveys on Corruption conducted among Businessmen or Expatriates: Highlights of Findings

REVERSE ENGINEERING OF LOCAL & INTERNATIONAL SURVEYS ON CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES