* This is my article today in thelobbyist.biz,
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The
freedom from summary execution or abduction, or being imprisoned or physically
attacked for expressing one’s view, is often absent in the consideration many global
economic freedom or competitiveness annual reports. In these reports, the
Philippines never ranked high worldwide.
This week,
an important report was released, Towards a Worldwide Index of Human
Freedom, January 08, 2013. It is a joint project of
three big think tanks advocating more individual freedom and limited government
– Fraser Institute in Canada, Liberales Institut in Germany, and Cato Institute
in the US. It has a big and ambitious goal, to produce the world’s first
comprehensive and conceptually consistent index of human freedom, composed of
personal freedom and economic freedom.
Freedom is
defined in the “negative” – the absence of barriers or coercion that prevent
individuals from acting as they might wish. While government is the main source
of external coercion, like people can not start any business unless they get permits from various local and
national agencies and pay various taxes and fees, other sources of coercion were
also identified. Below are the factors in constructing personal freedom index.
Table 1.
Structure of the Personal Freedom Index
Source:
Ian Vasquez and Tanja Stumberger, Chapter 3, An Index of Freedom in the
World, Towards a
Worldwide Index of Human Freedom, January 08, 2013
It is amazing how the authors have gathered
such kind of data where a global comparison among many countries can be made.
Check the link above how those concepts are defined, where the data were
lifted, and how scores were made.
There were 123 countries included in this
new report. The data used for
personal freedom are from 2008 while data for economic freedom are from 2010-11.
Here is the result.
Table 2.
Freedom Index and Sub-Indexes
Source:
same as above.
Generally, countries that have high scores in
economic freedom also have high scores in personal freedom, at least for those
in the top 10 or top 20. Singapore though is a big exception. While it is #2 worldwide in economic freedom next to Hong Kong, it ranked very
low on personal freedom with a score of only 6.6, should put in the 70+ in global
rank. This report will definitely make the Singapore government unhappy.
Many big European economies like Spain, Germany,
France and Italy have high scores in personal freedom but low score in economic
freedom, reflecting their heavy business bureaucracies and taxes, that
consequently pulled down their overall freedom index.
The
Philippines is #67 overall. It ranked low in I. Security and Safety with a score of 5.6, and III.Expression, 6.3. But it ranked high
in II. Movement with 8.6, and IV. Relationship Freedoms. Reports of
extra-judicial killings, torture, political imprisonment and disappearances
during the past administration significantly pulled down the country’s score in
I.
There are
at least two good news for the Philippines in this report. One, its average
score in the three indexes is slightly higher than the global average. Meaning
we have more personal and economic freedom compared to many people and
countries around the world.
Two, compared
to other major Asian neighbors, we have high degree of personal freedom, much
higher than those in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, India and China. Vietnam,
Laos, Cambodia are among the Asian countries that were not included in the
report yet.
As
mentioned, the information on personal freedom were lifted from 2008 data. Future
reports that will reflect 2010 and succeeding years of the current
administration would generally produce higher score for the country.
The bad
news is that economic freedom remains rather restricted in the country until
now. The local and national governments here tend to think that
entrepreneurship and job creation is a potentially criminal thing to do, so
they imposed plenty of business permits, taxes and fees, that sap significant
time and resources of entrepreneurs and investors. This is on top of a very
protectionist Constitution that prevents foreign competition to many local
business elites and oligarchies.
We hope
that the Philippine government, local and national, will heed this type of
international comparison. They add to either optimism or pessimism of Filipinos
and foreigners alike, seeing where the Philippines ranks compared to other
countries around the world. The government should learn to reduce business
bureaucracies, reduce the itch for more taxes, permits and fees, and focus on going after real criminals that bully
and victimize the average citizens.
Over the
short to medium term, the paranoia against foreign competition in many aspects
of the country’s economy should be lifted via constitutional change.
See also:
Rule of Law 13: Freedom Barometer 2011, March 23, 2012
Rule of Law 13: Freedom Barometer 2011, August 16, 2012
Pol. Ideology 38: Central Planning vs. Free Market, October 30, 2012
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