Martires defends Ombudsman’s low conviction rate

Ombudsman Samuel Martires on Monday defended before the House Appropriations Committee the big drop in the conviction rate of his office — from 61.2 percent in 2020 to 26.5 percent last year. In 2021, the Ombudsman's conviction rate was at 42.7 percent.

"I find it so unfair that the Office of the Ombudsman or our fight against corruption is [being] based on the number of convictions," Martires told the lawmakers. "And what happened to the hard work and the laborious investigations of the cases?"

Martires appeared before the House panel tackling his office's proposed budget for 2024. He answered concerns raised by Representatives Gerville Luistro of Batangas and Romeo Acop of Antipolo regarding the "dismal" performance.

He emphasized that the Ombudsman's conviction rate was subject to decisions not only of the Sandiganbayan, but also of other courts, including the Supreme Court.

"No lawyer [or judge] is of the same mind. Some lawyers think contrary to reality, and some lawyers think right. So if by chance the judge, or among the three justices of the Sandiganbayan, one of them has the opposite thinking and says acquittal, well, he (the accused) will be acquitted," he said.

"We are not the judges. We are prosecutors. We cannot tell the justices of the Sandiganbyan or a judge of the regional trial court to convict. We cannot do that," Martires said, adding that they were under a lot of pressure.

He cited as an example one of his prosecutors who was forced to resign after being threatened by a mayor who was the subject of an Ombudsman investigation.

"These are the facts, realities that we go through that are not appreciated by those who write [about] us," he said. "We cannot be an investigator, prosecutor, and a judge all at the same time. So I reiterate that we should not be judged on the number of convictions that we got," he stressed.

Endemic corruption

Martires appealed to Congress and some agencies of the United Nations, especially Transparency International, to refrain from rating the Office of the Ombudsman based on conviction numbers.

Acop said the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit should coordinate on what cases should be pursued before the courts as both serve as watchdogs against government shenanigans.

The lawmaker hinted that the jobs of the CoA and the Ombudsman were not easy as corruption is endemic in the Philippines, citing the most recent global Corruption Perception Index, which listed the country as the most corrupt among six Southeast Asian nations.

Martires said the CoA should stop publishing its audits because they unnecessarily put agencies in a bad light.

The Ombudsman has a proposed budget of P6.7 billion for 2024, but the Department of Budget and Management only approved P5.05 billion, for a cut of P1.67 billion, under the National Expenditure Program.

Martires did not ask Congress to increase his agency's budget, but instead said they would just tighten their belts.

"Although what DBM gave us is way below what we were asking for, we are satisfied with five-point [billion] something. I don't want to ask for more. I'm sure the difference between what we asked for and what we got  will be given to projects that the people need," he said.