PHL makes biggest jump in region–global Peace Index

THE Philippines has made the biggest peace improvement among the countries in the Asia Pacific region this year, according to the just released Global Peace Index (GPI) report, lending credence to the peace efforts of the Duterte administration which are characterized by aggressive campaigns against internal threat groups and illegal drugs.

Overall, the country was also ranked fifth in peace efforts among 163 countries and territories, which, according to the GPI 2022 report, comprised 99.7 percent of the world’s population.

“The Philippines recorded the largest improvement in the region and the fifth largest improvement in peacefulness in the 2022 GPI, improving by 4.6 percent,” the report said, which was released days ago and embargoed until Wednesday.

The significant improvement —the country’s best performance in 10 years, as the report noted— was driven principally by positive changes in “safety and security” and “ongoing conflict domains.”

“The country recorded its lowest score in a decade, largely driven by significant improvements in political stability, the impact of terrorism and homicide rates,” the GPI 2022 report said.

The report, produced by the Sydney-based independent and nonprofit think tank Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) measured peacefulness in three domains or baskets: safety and security, ongoing conflict and militarization. The EIP comes out with the GPI annually.

In coming out with this year’s report, the Australian think tank considered 23 different indicators for the three “baskets” or domains. Ten of these indicators are for safety and security, six on internal conflict and seven on the level of militarization.

“The Philippines are four places higher than they were last year.

Now, when I go into the detail of the first basket and then overall the specific indicators, clearly, when it comes to safety and security within society, this is an area with large increases especially when it comes to homicide rate, protection of criminality, incarceration rate. So that’s definitely better than it was a year ago,” Serge Stroobants told Businessmirror.

“When I go to ongoing conflicts, I see there an improvement on the indicator from internal conflict. So, less people were killed in the conflict. So that is very good. But I also see a decrease of really a red indicator for internal conflicts. This means that the conflict is active and we saw . . .the number of casualties that it is producing is not so high than last year and the years before. So that’s the evolution,” Stroobants, who is EIP’S director for Europe and MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, said.

Stroobants said the country declined in the domain of militarization as shown by indicators, one of which is weapons import.

“On the third basket...this is where I would find largest numbers, largest numbers of decreasing or deteriorating indicators and this is on weapons imports. Clearly, the Philippines imported more weapons last year, spent more military expenditure. So, this is a percentage of the GDP (gross domestic product),” he said.

The Businessmirror asked the EIP official whether safety and security and the ongoing conflict with or even the campaign against the local terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group, Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, other lawless groups allied with the Islamic State, the longestrunning insurgency and the deaths in the anti-illegal drugs drive, were considered for the report.

Despite its improved ranking in the GPI 2022 report, the Philippines, however, remained as the “third least peaceful country” in the Asia Pacific region for the second consecutive year, with North Korea being on top and followed by Myanmar.

Its peace efforts, however, managed to place it at 125 out of the 163 countries in the overall GPI 2022 report.

Iceland is still the most peaceful country in the world, a distinction since 2008. It was joined by New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark and Austria.

On the other hand, the GPI listed Afghanistan as the least peaceful country in the world, a rank it has held for the fifth consecutive year, followed by Yemen, Syria, Russia and South Sudan.

“All of these countries have been among the 10 least peaceful countries for the last three years,” the report said.

The Russia-ukraine war made the two countries record the biggest deterioration in peace and they were joined by Guinea, Burkina Faso and Haiti, all because of conflicts.

The GPI 2022 report found Europe as the most peaceful region in the world where seven out of the 10 most peaceful countries are located.

Impact on economy

MEASURING the impact of violence on the world economy, the report declared that in 2021, it stood at $16.5 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.

“This figure is equivalent to 10 percent of the world’s economic activity [gross world product] or $2,117 per person,” it said, adding its impact has “increased by 12.4 percent from the previous year.”

“This was mainly driven by an increase in global military expenditure, which rose by 18.8 percent, although more countries reduced their expenditure as a percent of GDP,” the GPI report declared.

China, the US and Iran were the countries with the largest increases in military expenditure in nominal terms.