The Office of the Ombudsman posted a "dismal" conviction rate for the first five months of the year, a sharp contrast to a boast by President Arroyo during her State of the Nation Address (SONA) that the agency's success cases have increased by "500 percent."
According to records, the Ombudsman had 10 convictions out of 162 cases disposed by the Sandiganbayan from January to May 2008, which equals to a mere six-percent conviction rate.
Based on a report by the Sandiganbayan Statistics and Records Division, the graft court acquitted 59, dismissed 45 without trial, dismissed 22 after trial and archived 10 cases in all.
Prosecutors also withdrew 10 cases while one case was transferred to another court.
This record came in the wake of the single worst performance of the Ombudsman in terms of number of cases filed with only 93 indictments for 2007, down over 500 percent from 520 cases in 2006.
Also in 2007, prosecutors scored a whole-year total of 49 convictions against 104 acquittals, 57 cases withdrawn and 57 cases dismissed.
Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio said the plunging performance of the Ombudsman was caused by "the disturbance of working policies set up by former Tanodbayan Simeon Marcelo and myself’.
“We proved we can convict an elected President, we won a P600 million forfeiture case and our conviction rate hit a high of 45 percent in 2006. Now all of those are gone. We are back to the dark ages,” Villa-Ignacio said.
This record came despite Mrs. Arroyo's proclamation that her administration allotted P3 billion to fight corruption – an amount she declared was ‘the largest anti-graft fund in our history’ in her State of the Nation Address last July 28.
Also in her SONA, the President claimed that ‘"rom its dismal past record, the Ombudsman’s conviction rate has increased 500 percent."