Law enforcement, judicial institutions in Philippines ‘functioning as they should’ — Guevarra

The criminal justice system in the Philippines is working despite its imperfections, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said Friday, after the country ranked poorly on the 2021 Rule of Law Index.

According to the World Justice Project, the Philippines logged an overall score of 0.46 for rule of law. The WJP's highest score is 1 while 0 is the lowest possible score.

The Rule of Law Index indicated that the Philippines' rank (102nd out of 139 countries) was three places lower than in 2020.

Though he has not seen the report nor was he informed about the basis for the rankings, Guevarra said the government “will exert greater efforts to uphold and promote the rule of law in our country.”

“But from where I stand, I can see that except for a few sensational cases, the general crime rate in our country has been on a downtrend in recent years, and that the government has been addressing reported violations of human rights and alleged abuses in the conduct of the campaign against illegal drugs,” he said in a message to reporters.

“Our law enforcement, prosecutorial, and judicial institutions, although imperfect like any other human institutions, have been functioning as they should.”

The DOJ has said it will forward 51 of the 52 cases of drug war deaths to the National Bureau of Investigation for case build-up.

It also said it was open to publishing the drug war review findings.

The WJP Rule of Law Index covers 139 nations and is based on national surveys of more than 138,000 households and 4,200 legal practitioners and experts to measure "how the rule of law is experienced and perceived worldwide." — VBL, GMA News