How the Philippines’ military advancements compare with its peers in the region

The Philippines edged up a spot to 131st out of 154 countries in the Bonn International Center for Conflict Studies’ (BICC) Global Militarization Index (GMI) 2022, which maps the relative weight and importance of a country’s military apparatus in relation to its society as a whole. The GMI focuses on three major militarization indicators: expenditures, personnel, and weapons. In a normalized scale of 0 to 1,000,* the country scored 82.8 in the latest edition using 2021 data, up by a point previously. The Philippines landed second lowest in overall military advancements in the East and Southeast Asia region, only ahead of Timor-Leste.