Malacañang on Thursday denied that the government is unleashing legal attacks against the opposition after the Philippines’s ranking again declined in the 2018 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Democracy Index.
The Department of Justice also said the legal actions taken by the government against key personalities in the opposition were legitimate and were intended to “protect the state and the people.”
“Definitely, there is no basis [for the statement that the government launched legal attacks against the opposition]. Most of them were just misplaced accusation,” Presidential Spokesman and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador S. Panelo said in a Palace briefing on Thursday.
Panelo also said the country’s ranking would not have slipped this year if the ones behind the Democracy Index were not listening to detractors.
“They are the ones acknowledging that there is an increase [in Asia’s score]. The one that they are referring to as dampener were the criticisms from the opposition because they are listening to that. If they do not listen to those wrong [accusations], it will not affect our rating,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.
“Because according to them, from the point of view of detractors, critics, there are human- rights violations, but there is none. Our rating would not have been affected if not for those accusations. So they should not listen to those criticisms which do not have basis,” he added.
It can be recalled that, last year, President Duterte voided the amnesty given to his vocal critic, Sen. Antonio F. Trillanes IV in 2011 in connection with his role in the Oakwood mutiny and the Manila Peninsula incident, which happened in 2003 and 2007, respectively.
Through his Proclamation No. 572, Duterte pushed for Trillanes’s arrest and the revival of the rebellion and coup d’etat charges filed against the senator before the Regional Trial Court of Makati City.
Also last year, the government’s chief legal counsel Solicitor General Jose Calida successfully ousted then-Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno by filing a quo warranto petition before the Supreme Court questioning the validity of her appointment as chief magistrate.
Calida alleged that she failed to fully disclose the required statements of assets, liabilities and net worth when she applied for position in 2012. His petition was granted by the majority members of the 15-man High Tribunal, which led to Sereno’s ouster.
The government also filed a suit before the court to declare the communist New People’s Army as a terrorist group.
Also last year, the government moved for the cancellation of the business registration of online news site Rappler, which has been critical of the Duterte administration, over foreign ownership issues.
“I can’t agree that these government actions are undemocratic in any way, and this so-called intelligence report by [the EIU] should not bother us at all,” Guevarra said in a statement.
Justice Undersecretary and Spokesman Mark L. Perete also stressed that the government has not resorted to legal actions as a form of retaliation in order to get back at the opposition.
“Legal action has been, and will be, taken as called for by the circumstances in each case and as dictated by the evidence at hand, regardless of the political affiliation of the party concerned,” Perete said.
‘Dampeners of democracy’
In its Democracy Index 2018 released on Wednesday, the Philippines’s ranking continued to fall, dropping to 53rd from 51st in the 2017 edition. In 2016, the Philippines was ranked 50th among 167 countries in terms of the quality of democracy.
The EIU has continued to classify the Philippines as having a “flawed democracy” along with other 54 countries. In its report, the EIU noted an increase in Asia’s score in the 2018 democracy index but considered the legal attacks on the opposition in the Philippines as among the “dampeners” of democracy.
Aside from legal attacks in the country’s opposition, the EIU said other dampeners to democratic gains in Asia include the controversy over electoral irregularities in Pakistan and the sentencing of two Reuters journalists to seven years in prison in Myanmar for illegal possession of documents.
“All this served as a reminder that there is still a long way to go for democratic values to be entrenched in Asia,” the report said.
The EIU said the improvement in the region’s score in 2018 was driven by rising political participation across the region.
In particular, the EIU cited the successful major elections last year in Malaysia and Afghanistan, which ranked 52nd and 143rd, respectively, in the democracy index.
The latest report also indicated that only 20, or 12 percent, out of 167 countries enjoy full democracies, while only 4.5 percent of the world’s population lives in a “full democracy.”
Norway is ranked No. 1 in the democracy index for 2018, while North Korean is at the last spot.
The EIU is the world’s leading resource for economic and business research, forecasting and analysis.
The EIU Democracy Index is based on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture.