Philippines: Winner of Guinness Country w/ Most Murders per Year

Nice work Joe Kerr. A large percentage of articles these days are not researched and therefore wrong. Disinformation is a dangerous thing. I applaud your skepticism and your follow up with the sites noted. One should read the news as a source of information and not a source of titilation or entertainment. The worldwide quality of journalism these days is pathetic. Reporters as too worried about grabbing attention with shocking stories, true or not. And this of course is driven by readers who flock to tabloid stories and not substance.

This has real life ramifications here. For example  the wife of a western family with large retirement assets reads this bad article and stops her husbands plans to retire in the Philippines. Large sums of money never come there. A condominium never gets built and the jobs in the home and commerce at local resatuarants etc. never become realized. Every Peso counts in the Philippines. Somebody loses. Maybe lots of people lose.

I learned more from you than from the article.

Thanks, Dave

@ Dave

I believe you don't realize the fact that even if the updated list of countries with most murders show the Philippines on 8 slot, "This country's still in its horror roll".

 Whatever it may imply or come to your thinking. The readers are still entitled to the truth.

"The Philippines won the Guinness country with most murders record".

And by the rate of corruption this country is experiencing. I personally would not want my own family to be entangled in the same web.

I would disagree on your statement that this are "not researched and therefore wrong".

You might want to TALK to these guys if you are saying they are WRONG.

-Guinness Book of World Records

-NY Committee to Protect Journalists

-Pulse Asia

Joe Kerr, I dare to defend Sen. Gordon from your words...I believe you know nothing about this guy.After all, it seems that you're the one whose not doing a research.

Senator Richard J. Gordon

Coming from an illustrious family of leaders, Sen. Richard Juico Gordon needs no introduction. His father James L. Gordon was the founder of Olongapo and its first elected municipal mayor. Likewise, his mother Amelia J. Gordon was the first mayor of Olongapo when it became a city.

Following family tradition, Sec. Gordon, too, became Mayor of Olongapo from 1980 to 1993 earning the distinction of being the youngest ever elected to the office. From 1992-1998 he was the Founding Chairman and Administrator of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, a brainchild of his that gave new life to the city after the dismantlement of the US Military Bases in 1991.

As founding Chair and Administrator of the SBMA, he inspired an army of 8,000 volunteers who protected and preserved the U.S.$ 8 billion facility. Together with the volunteers, he successfully transformed Subic into a premier investment hub that hosted the 4th APEC Leaders Summit in 1996. By the time he left in 1998, SBMA had over 300 investors including notable American companies: Federal Express, Coastal Petroleum and Enron.

In 2001, he transformed the Philippines Tourism industry: plagued by a negative image of kidnappings and SARS disease and complicated by an era of continued threat of terrorism. As Secretary of Tourism he accomplished this with his campaign: "WOW Philippines! More than the usual!" This resulted to increased tourist arrivals that rejuvenated the industry, becoming the country's acknowledged fastest way to address poverty and unemployment

In the 2004 national elections when he ran as senator of the Philippines, despite the initial low public opinion surveys, Dick Gordon won and received the fifth highest number of votes from the electorate. Filipinos warmly received his very positive personality and track record of achievements. He passed the very first law in the 13th Congress, Republic Act No. 9333, fixing the regular elections at the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and several other important laws, including Republic Act No. 9369, the New Automated Election System law; Republic Act No. 9334, the Sin Tax Law, Republic Act Nos. 9399 and 9400, fixing the tax regime in Special Economic Zones and Freeports in Clark in Pampanga, Poro Point in La Union; and John Hay in Baguio; Republic Act No. 9346, the abolition of the death penalty law; and Republic Act No. 9367, the Biofuels Act of 2007.

Dick Gordon is also an active volunteer of the Red Cross in the Philippines for the last 25 years and has recently been elected member of the Governing Board of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He personally led numerous relief, rescue and rehabilitation operations.

For his efforts and contributions to public service, Richard Gordon received numerous awards and recognition. The PNRC conveyed to him the Silver Humanitarian Award in 2001 for voluntary efforts in alleviating human suffering. The Philippines' premier state university -- U.P. recognized him as an Outstanding Alumnus in Public Administration in 1984 and later bestowed him its highest recognition as The Most Distinguished Alumnus for 1997. He was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) in 1982 and the youngest to be conferred as The Outstanding Filipino (TOFIL) in 1996.

Asahi Shimbun recognized him as one of the "50 Young Leaders of Asia" in 1994. Asiaweek in its 20th Anniversary issue included him as one of the "20 Great Asians for the Future" while Japan's NHK TV featured him as one of "Asia's Who's Who" in 1995. The South China Morning Post (24 July 2001) coined his task as Tourism Minister as "Mission Impossible". The Asian Wall Street Journal (8 August 2001) and Singapore Straits Times (8 October 2001) featured his innovative "WOW Philippines" campaign to address the Philippines' negative image. The Economist (7-13 October 1995) featured him as "The Chairman of Subic", Singapore Business Times (18-19 February 2001) distinguished him as the "Shogun of Subic" in 1995, Asia Magazine (6-8 October 1995) addressed him the "Messiah of Subic", Far Eastern Economic Review (14 December 1995) hailed him the "Sultan of Subic", the Hong Kong Standard (27 May 1995) called him "Flash Gordon of the Philippines".

In other words, the Philippines is a deep shithole.

I'm ashamed to be a Filipino. I want the whole world to know that.

The report where Guiness got its statistics from came from here:

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/Ninth-United-Nations-Survey-on-Crime-Trends-and-the-Operations-of-Criminal-Justice-Systems.html

Here is the source document of Guiness entry:

http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/CTS9_by_country_public.pdf

It is actually not a factual source since it is only based on questionaires sent to participating countries. If you look at the exact questionaires submitted by each country, some countries filled in information about their murder rates (Philippines) while other countries which have annual murder rates going into 5 figures did not furnish information.
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/cts9.html

The report even has a disclaimer regarding its accuracy:

UNODC has confined itself to reproducing the figures as received on the questionnaire forms.

The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.[u]Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic.[/U]
UNODC would like to thank all contributing states and their corresponding agencies for their cooperation, which made it possible to produce these statistics.

We could not have been No. 1 in total number of murders in 2004 since countries like India, Colombia, Russia, the US, South Africa, Brazil (and probably Iraq) historically have murders going into the tens of thousands.

Rank Countries Amount
# 1 India: 37,170
# 2 Russia: 28,904
# 3 Colombia: 26,539
# 4 South Africa: 21,553
# 5 United States: 16,204
# 6 Mexico: 13,144
# 7 Venezuela: 8,022
# 8 Philippines: 6,553
# 9 Thailand: 5,140
# 10 Ukraine: 4,418

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur-crime-murders#source

Looks like D1ck Gordon and whoever this idiot blogger I’m reading got all of you rickrolled.

I say this myth is

BUSTED!

PS: It is just so sad that a lot of our countrymen are quick to believe the worst regarding our own country. I just hope these people will get murdered. Now THAT will be a statistic that will be great to look at.