Within Southeast Asia, the Philippines is not the country most susceptible to violent conflict—that distinction belongs to Myanmar (Burma)—but is the one where the danger of conflict has grown the most in the last year, and also grown the most in the last decade. This is based on the Fragile States Index of The Fund for Peace (www.fundforpeace.org), a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington, DC.
The Fragile States Index (FSI)—formerly called the “Failed States Index”—is an attempt to measure the vulnerability to violent conflict of all countries in the world. The forces it considers are: 1. Demographic pressures, 2. Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), 3. Group grievances, 4. Human flight and brain drain, 5. Uneven economic development, 6. Poverty and economic decline, 7. State legitimacy, 8. Public services, 9. Human rights and rule of law,
10. Security apparatus, 11. Factionalized elites, and 12. External interventions.
Each of these dimensions is scored on a scale of 0 (none) to 10 (maximum), by formulas using a large number of underlying indicators. The formulas are in a proprietary Conflict Assessment Software Tool (CAST). For each country, the 12 scores are added up, so the sum can range from 0 to 120. The report “Fragile States Index 2014,” with sums for 178 countries, shows that the most vulnerable to violence is South Sudan (112.9 total), and the least vulnerable is Finland (18.7).
The CAST is touted as having been designed very scientifically. Maybe so. As long as its innards are secret, however, its quality can be guessed only from the plausibility of the outcomes.
Statuses of tendencies for violent conflict in Southeast Asia. The 2014 FSI report assigns the status of alert to Myanmar (24th in the world, score 94.3) and Timor Leste (score 91.0). It puts a very high warning on Cambodia (88.5), the Philippines (52nd in the world, score 85.3), and Laos (84.3), a high warning on Thailand (77.0), Indonesia (76.8) and Vietnam (72.7), and a simple warning on Malaysia (66.2) and Brunei (63.6).
Finally, it calls Singapore (35.9) very stable.
The score of 60 is the apparent cutoff for countries to get at least a warning. Country scores of 50-59 are labeled less stable, those of 40-49 stable, those of 30-39 very stable, those of 20-29 sustainable, and those below 20 very sustainable.
Incidentally, India (76.9), China (79.0) and Russia (76.5) all get a high warning. On the other hand, Japan (36.3) and the United States (35.4) are very stable. With fully 126 of the 178 indexed countries scored above 60, the FSI world map is heavily colored in warning shades of orange and red. The clear message is that peace is under threat almost everywhere.
Philippine status. What accounts for the Philippines being fourth most vulnerable to violent conflict in Southeast Asia? The FSI 2014 report regards the Philippines as worst in the dimension of security apparatus (score 8.8), followed by Myanmar and Timor Leste (tied at 8.0). This dimension covers internal conflict, military coups, small arms proliferation, rebel activity, militancy, riots/protests, bombings, fatalities from conflict, and political prisoners.
In the dimension of group grievances, the Philippines is second (8.3) after Myanmar (9.3). In demographic pressures, we are second (7.8) after Timor Leste (8.8). In refugees and IDPs, we are second (7.7) after Myanmar (8.2)—according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (internal-displacement.org), the number of IDPs from conflict and violence is 643,000 in Myanmar, and 95,000 in the Philippines, as of mid-2014.
In the other dimensions, we are not worse than fifth, or roughly midway, in the region, with scores of 5.9 in human flight and brain drain, 6.3 in uneven economic development, 5.7 in poverty and economic decline, 7.3 in state legitimacy, 6.9 in public services, 6.4 in human rights and rule of law, 8.0 in factional elites, and 6.2 in external intervention.
Trends of tendencies for violent conflict in Southeast Asia. A “status” means the position at a point in time; a “trend” means the change in position over points in time. Comparing the 2014 and 2013 reports, the Philippines is the fifth most worsened country in the world, according to increase in score (+2.5). Singapore and Thailand are tied for eighth place in terms of worsened score (+1.9).
Based on one-year change in rank, on the other hand, Thailand is the second-worst in the world, having risen 10 ranks, from 90th to 80th. The Philippines is the 25th worst in the world, having risen seven ranks, from 59th to 52nd.
Indonesia, for its part, is the sixth most-improved in world ranking, having fallen from 76th to 82nd in one year.
Southeast Asian trend since 2006. It is in the long-term trend that the Philippines did quite poorly—the 31st most worsened in the world, its score up by +6.1 points in 2006-2014. Other Southeast Asian countries that worsened were Singapore (+5.1), Cambodia (+3.5), and Thailand (+2.1). Malaysia hardly moved (+0.1).
At the same time, Indonesia did very well in long-term improvement, at -12.4, second in the world only to Bosnia & Herzegovina’s -12.6. There was strong improvement in Brunei (-7.6), and some improvement in Vietnam (-5.9), Timor Leste (-3.9), Laos (-3.6), and Myanmar (-2.2).
The danger of conflict in a country, like any other risk, should be analyzed by quantitative measurements. The eyeball approach isn’t good enough any more.
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Contact mahar.mangahas@sws.org.ph.