The National Security Council (NSC) welcomed “with great enthusiasm and optimism” the latest results of the Global Terrorism Index (GTI) 2023 which showed that the Philippines was ranked as the 18^th most affected country by terrorism out of 163 nations last year, down from Top 10 in the previous years.

(File photo: Manila Bulletin)

In the GTI 2023 released last month, the Philippines obtained a composite score of 6.328 out of 10 which translates to “medium impact” from terrorism.

The GTI report is produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), a global think tank based in Australia, since 2012. It provides a comprehensive summary of the key global trends and patterns in terrorism over the last decade. The calculation of the GTI score considers not only deaths but also incidents, hostages, and injuries from terrorism weighted over a five-year period.

The GTI produces a composite score so as to provide an ordinal ranking of countries on the impact of terrorism. The GTI scores each country on a scale from zero to 10 where zero represents “no impact” from terrorism and 10 represents the “highest measurable impact” of terrorism.

The 2023 global list was topped by Afghanistan which obtained a score of 9.11, followed by Iraq (8.51), Somalia (8.4), Burkina Faso (8.27), and Syria (8.25) in the Top 5.

In the Asia Pacific region, the Philippines was the second most affected country by terrorism in 2022. Myanmar was the most affected in the region which got a score of 7.977 (ninth globally).

But according to the NSC, the country had a “much improved ranking” last year compared to being in the Top 10 "several years ago."

“Since the GTI’s inception a decade ago, the Philippines languished in the Top Ten list of countries battered by terrorism, along with war-torn states like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Such notoriety, according to the same reports, was due to the atrocities mostly committed by the communist terrorist group New People’s Army (NPA) and armed groups affiliated with known international terrorist organizations,” the NSC said in a statement on Monday, April 17.

“While it may be true that the Philippines remains to date as the second ‘most impacted country’ by terrorism in Southeast Asia, the GTI noted that ‘the Philippines recorded its lowest level of terrorism since the inception of GTI,’” the NSC stated, noting that the country had 20 attacks and 18 deaths due to terrorism in 2022 which translates to a drop of 68 percent and 65 percent respectively compared to the 2021 data.

The NSC said that an in-depth study of the trend in GTI showed that from 2011 to 2020, the Philippines hovered around the 10th most affected country by terrorism in the index until it showed “great improvements” in 2021 (16^th place) and 2022 (18^th place).

Notably, the NSC said that the NPA was declared by the GTI as the 15^th “deadliest terrorist organization” in the world. The NPA has been waging decades-old communist rebellion against the government.

It said the GTI considers the NPA as the “most active and deadliest terrorist organization in the Philippines” followed by Islamic State (ISIS)-inspired local groups and Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG). In the 2020 GTI, the NSC said that the NPA was responsible for 98 deaths (35 percent) and 132 terror-related incidents (38 percent) in 2019.

The NSC said that the country’s improved ranking was “a testament to the Philippine government’s unrelenting resolve” to address the root causes of insurgency through the implementation of landmark measures such as the Bangsamoro Organic Law, the Executive Order No. 70 which created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), the campaign in preventing and countering violent extremism (PCVE), and the Anti-Terrorism Act among others.

“These positive developments must inspire and fire up each and every peace and freedom-loving Filipinos to participate in this whole of nation approach to end the decades-old communist terrorism by extending the hands of unity and peace to those who were duped into embracing this defunct and senseless cause,” the NSC said.