MANILA, Philippines - Most of the respondents whose cases have been resolved by the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan during the first half of the year were either acquitted of the charges the Office of the Ombudsman filed against them or saw their cases dismissed even before trial.
In a midyear report, the Sandiganbayan reported that at least 94 of the 194 persons whose cases were resolved between January and June were acquitted of the charges.
The cases filed against 44 respondents were dismissed without going into trial while those filed against 13 respondents were dismissed during trial.
In the first half of the year, the Sandiganbayan convicted only 23 respondents of the charges the Office of the Ombudsman filed against them.
The Office of the Ombudsman also withdrew this year the cases that it had filed against 11 respondents.The Office of the Ombudsman probes and prosecutes complaints against government officials.
But Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez is facing an impeachment complaint before Congress for allegedly sitting on high-profile cases and for allegedly filing defective cases against administration allies.
Her office has shrugged off the criticisms.
Sandiganbayan records also showed that the Office of the Ombudsman has filed at least 168 cases in the first six months of the year, although 56 of these cases referred to the same set of respondents.
In March, the Office of the Ombudsman filed 28 counts of graft and 28 counts of estafa against businessman Faustino Chingkoe and former officials of the Department of Finance for an alleged tax credit scam.
The Office of the Ombudsman reported last year a high 73 percent conviction rate after claiming that of the cases it prosecuted and which the Sandiganbayan resolved in 2008, 406 resulted in convictions while only 147 resulted in acquittals.
But the Inquirer learned that 221 of the 406 convictions the Office of the Ombudsman scored in 2008 actually involved just one person, a mayor in Quezon province found guilty of usurpation of official functions of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for issuing permits to transport forest products.
