Purisima: Good governance set off a virtuous cycle towards inclusive and sustainable growth
The Board of Directors of Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), an independent agency of the U.S. government, at its quarterly meeting in Washington, D.C., announced the country’s eligibility to develop a proposal for a new compact with MCC.
In selecting the Philippines, the MCC Board of Directors highlighted the Philippine Government’s efforts towards good governance and improved policy performance in promoting inclusive economic growth as reflected in the recent performance of the country in the MCC Scorecard FY2015. The Philippines passed the eligibility requirements of MCC, including the Control of Corruption indicator.
The scorecard system is a mechanism developed by MCC to measure a country’s performance, as compared with countries of similar per capita income, in twenty (20) third-party indicators divided into three (3) broad categories, i.e., Economic Freedom, Investing in People and Ruling Justly and contributing as basis for eligibility of a country to access Compact grants from the US Government.
In the MCC Scorecard FY2015, the Philippines earned improved scores in Rule of Law (a jump from 42% to 54%) and Control of Corruption (a jump from 46% to 61%) under the Ruling Justly Category. This, coupled with consistent passing scores in indicators in Economic Freedom and Investing in People (e.g. Fiscal Policy, Inflation, Regulatory Quality, Natural Resource Protection, and Child Health), earned the Philippines eligibility for a new compact with MCC.
Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima said, “The Philippines’ eligibility adds to the virtuous cycle we began with good governance in our bid to promote inclusive, sustainable growth. With Moody’s recent upgrade of the country’s credit rating to Baa2, we welcome how our development partners and the international community are positively responding to our hard work by empowering even more reforms to happen. Every recognition we earn from our partners is ammunition in the good fight we started last 2010.”
Scheduled to be completed in May 2016, the Philippines is currently in the latter stage of implementation of the first compact with MCC amounting to US$433.91 million worth of grants to support rehabilitation of the Samar Road of the Department of Public Works and Highways, Kalahi-CIDSS community-driven development projects of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and revenue reform and anti-corruption efforts of the Department of Finance through the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Revenue Integrity Protection Service.
