Merceditas Gutierrez’s magical
numbers vs crooks

Who has been jailed for corruption?

Not many. In fact, only a few one could count them by the fingers. And certainly, not any one of senior rank among elective and appointive officials from any of the branches of government, nor a single star-rank officer from the Armed Forces and the Philippine the National Police has served time for corruption in the last 22 years.

In truth, only seven officials are serving time for corruption, out of 118 who had been prosecuted by the Ombudsman, convicted by the Sandiganbayan, and whose jail sentences had been upheld by the Supreme Court, since 1988. In truth, of these seven, the two officials holding the highest rank of office are barangay captains.

For the most part, four “Tanodbayan” in a row and 22 years since its birth, the Office of the Ombudsman, “the protector of the people” against graft and corruption, remains a largely effete graftbuster.

Our latest offering is a four-part report on the various reasons why the Office of the Ombudsman has remained largely ineffectual as the country’s premier anti-graft agency. The product of months of investigation, this report reviews, compares and contrasts the performance of the four officials who had served as Ombudsman, including incumbent Ma. Merceditas N. Gutierrez.

As well, this report analyzes the database of the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court on the cases that the Office of the Ombudsman has filed from 1988 to 2009. Our scrutiny of this database yields mostly sad findings – a high number of cases dismissed or ending in acquittals, a higher number withdrawn but with some ending up refiled, a still higher number of cases unresolved and pending for years, but also a negligible number of cases ending in convictions.

Part 1 of our report looks at how, despite the flood of funds from foreign donors and a three-fold increase in its budget since 2003, the Ombudsman has failed to deliver more and better results. It comes with a sidebar on how the Ombudsman has served generals in the military and police a mere slap on the wrist, even as it has filed more cases against uniformed personnel of lower rank.