PH confident to get MCC compact
The Department of Finance (DOF) is confident that the Millennium Challenge Corp. (MCC) will consider the Duterte administration’s reforms to weed out official corruption and adhere to the rule of law in deciding on the eligibility of the country for another assistance program.
In a statement, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the Philippines remains firmly committed to the rule of law and strictly adheres to due process.
Dominguez also said the President has made clear that his platform of government will be based on zero tolerance for corruption in government.”
“In its first year in office, the Duterte Administration has actually been relentless in the campaign against corruption in government,” Dominguez said.
He noted, for instance, that President Duterte cleansed the corruptionplagued Bureau of Corrections in just weeks after assuming office by replacing its prison guards with elite personnel from the Special Action Force (SAF) of the Philippine National Police (PNP).
The chief executive also issued last month an executive order creating the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) to investigate administrative cases of corruption involving presidential appointees, the finance chief cited.
The Duterte administration also set up the 8888 Citizens Complaint Hotline in October last year to receive complaints against corruption and inefficiencies in government, among other measures, Dominguez noted.
He stressed that “the Philippines’ partnership with the MCC can contribute to making progress in terms of maintaining the country’s growth momentum, improving competitiveness, institutionalizing good governance, and moving closer to our shared objective of inclusive growth.”
The MCC compact is only one of the many streams of US assistance that flows to the Philippines.
“The Philippines remains one of the largest recipients of US assistance in Asia. The US values the partnership of the Philippines on shared interests, especially in countering violent extremism, and in promoting stability across the region,” Dominguez said.
“The scorecards are only one of the factors that the MCC Board takes into consideration when making reselection decisions. We are confident that the Board will take into consideration relevant information and recent data on our very deliberate efforts to improve the ‘control of corruption and adherence to the ‘rule of law,’ indicators,” Dominguez said.
Dominguez noted that there were “inherent time lags” in the third-party data used by the MCC in assessing the annual country scorecard for the Philippines.