Alleba Politics

SWS: Increasing Solicitation for Bribes in Davao

August 2nd, 2005 at 6:47 pm (General, Davao City)

According to SWS:

The two surveys of Metro Davao enterprises in 2004 and 2005 show a marked increase in the proportion of businessmen who said they were asked for bribes in the past year.
Davao enterprise managers report mor esolicitation of bribes in all the transactions included in the survey, except for income taxes.
39% of Davao businessmen say they were asked for a bribe in relation to getting local permits/licenses, up from 26% in 2004.
Solicitation of bribes also increased regarding national government permits/licenses from 9% in 2004 to 30% in 2005.
Davao enterprises asked for a bribe in relation to supplying government with goods/services rose to 29% in 2005, compared to 18% in 2004.
Delaing with import regulations had an even larger increase, with 19% solicited for a bribe in 2005, up from 2% in 2005 (-2004[probably a typo] - MJ).
Solicitation of bribes also rose in connection with collecting receivables from government (26% in 2005 versus 13% in 2004) and availing of government incentives (17% in 2005 versus 2% in 2004).
Regarding income tax payments, 24% of Davao businessmen said they were asked for a bribe, or similar to the 23% solicited on this matter on 2004.

Additional Info:Only 701 business managers from the areas of Metro Manila, Metro Cebu, Metro Davao, Cavite-Laguna-Batangas (Calaba) and Cagayan de Oro/Iligan City (CDO-I) were included in the survey.

Although the survey results should cause alarm, I do not think that it is a good gauge on bribery rates in the city. For one, 701 is a very small number of business managers compared to the thousands of businesses in the country. Moreover, we do not even know how many of these 701 actually did business in Davao City. At the most, probably 250 which, I think, is not representative of Davao City. Take note, too, that the survey pertains to Metro Davao, not Davao City, which probably includes the Davao provinces: Davao del Sur, Davao del Norte and Davao Oriental.

I would be the first one to admit that there is indeed bribery and corruption in the entire Philippines, Davao included. But to say that it increased according to a survey for a very limited population would be a mispresentation of the facts.

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