Whatever Singapore is, that's what the Philippines is not

In Jessica Zafra's Twisted Travels, she described Singapore as the complete antithesis of the Philippines. In the former, everyone obeys rules and everything is clean and organized; the latter is completely the opposite. As a viewer of international politics, the media and reports will create a picture of the difference between the two of the ASEAN-5 members.

Take for example the template of governance that the two countries carry; the table below shows the scores of Philippines and Singapore in World Bank’s (WB) World Governance Indicators (WGI).

http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/

These numbers show that with the exception of voice and accountability, the Philippines lags behind Singapore in maintaining (1) political stability, (2) government effectiveness, (3) regulatory quality, (4) rule of law, and (5) control of corruption. The low score of Philippines in voice and accountability can be attributed to the lack of accountability within the public realm while Singapore's low score can be explained by the lack of freedom of speech. Notwithstanding the lack of freedom of speech, Singapore maintains a politically stable country where the government is effective. In the Philippines, on the other hand, rallying is part of the mundane and journalists write what they want; however, journalists who are 'radical' are likely to be murdered and citizens view the government ineffective. Furthermore, the high scores of Singapore in regulatory quality and rule of law manifest the ability of Singaporeans to implement and follow rules effectively. In the Philippines, conversely, these two indicators of good governance are hardly seen; we see citizens crossing the street wherever they want and rules that are as basic as traffic rules are violated. Finally, corruption in the Philippines is not seen on how Singapore does things, which is manifested on the two countries' control of corruption scores.

It took an authoritarian to develop Singapore, does the Philippines need another one?