NEWS RELEASE
December 13, 2008
KIKO CHALLENGES OMBUDSMAN TO REVEAL CORRECT CONVICTION RATE DATA
With the Office of the Ombudsman claiming a record high in conviction rate for the month of November, Independent senator and judicial reform advocate Kiko Pangilinan today challenged the agency’s figures and called for a transparent report of the cases disposed and being handled by the Ombudsman.
“The figures being shown tell us only about the rate of conviction vis-à-vis acquittal. It doesn’t tell us the real picture, because the percentage doesn’t include pending cases that are not being acted upon. The Ombudsman must show the real situation by reporting to the public all the pending cases and how the cases were actually acted upon and resolved,” Kiko said.
Press statements from the Ombudsman allege that the ant-graft office secured convictions in 21 of 23 cases, making its alleged conviction rate a high of 91.3%. In an earlier statement from the Sandiganbayan however last September, the Office of the Ombudsman scored only a total of 18 convictions over 7 months versus 174 cases disposed. A simple computation would show that it is only equivalent to a conviction rate of 10.34% which deferred from Ombudsman’s data of 26.73 conviction rating. The anti-graft court statisticians requested the Ombudsman to correct its computations.
“How can the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan have conflicting records when it comes to the agency’s conviction rate? The figures that come out from the OMB is the real conviction rate. Let us not deceive the public with figures that don’t speak of the real condition of our justice system. We need to be transparent as to how many is these convicted officials are actually punished and are made to pay their acts. If the Ombudsman wants a good reputation it should stop painting a rosy picture of the situation. Instead, it should speed up the resolution of its cases and the punishment of the guilty. Hindi ito nakikita lang sa numero. Nararamdaman ito sa pagbabago ng gobyerno at paglilinis ng servisyo publiko,” Kiko ended. ###