During his second State of the Nation Address, President Benigno Aquino III announced that retired Supreme Court Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales was to be the new Ombudsman of the Philippines.

The President placed high expectations on her new leadership after former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez failed to tackle several high-profile cases. "Inaasahan ko nga po na sa taong ito masasampahan na ng kaso ang lahat ng nagkuntsabahan sa katiwalian at naging sanhi ng sitwasyong ating inabutan (I expect this year that cases would be filed against those who conspired to commit corruption and which caused the situation left to us),” President Aquino said in his speech.

The President added that under the new leadership, erring public officials would be prosecuted. "Kapag tayo ang nagsampa, matibay ang ebidensya, malinaw ang testimonya at siguradong walang lusot ang salarin (If we file cases, evidence is strong, testimonies are clear and culprits surely have no way out).”

We’ve received a response from the Office of the Ombudsman to our April 21 request to access and publish all the Statement of Assets and Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs) that they hold.

The Watchful Advocates for Transparent, Clean and Honest Governance in Kidapawan (WATCH Kidapawan) led several campaigns between August and September to demand for more transparency and accountability in government projects, including the delivery of heavy infrastructure equipment worth PhP 45 million (USD 1 million) and the unimplemented PhP 5.9 million (USD 134,090) waste water treatment facility.

Corruption has absolutely nothing to do with culture and everything to do with political and personal will.

Those who point to traditions and history are simply making the poorest of excuses and are in basic denial by simply refusing to accept personal and collective responsibility for the state they are in.

So says one of the world’s leading anti-corruption experts -- Tony Kwok, who spoke at a public forum on Friday at Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City. As proof, the former Deputy Head of the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) in Hong Kong pointed to the overarching Chinese culture and Confucian traditions in his home town which transformed itself from being one of the most corrupt societies to one of the cleanest.

Philippine constitutional bodies responsible for prosecuting officials charged with corruption appear to be failing in their mission and fairly or not, are helping sow the seeds of public distrust and anger.

Currently battling against impeachment proceedings in the 15^th Congress, the Ombudsman has long been criticized by many observers for its failure to clamp down on cases of corruption.

ABS-CBN in an article in 2009ⁱ decried the Ombudsman’s “dreadful conviction rate” in the first half of the year. According to the article, during the period from January to June 2009, figures obtained from the Sandiganbayan showed that the Office of the Ombudsman secured 22 convictions and one guilty plea against a total of 194 accused.

Kidapawan City -- Can ordinary citizens trying to keep watch of corruption issues in their community be denied information on graft-related cases against local officials?

This was the question asked by members of the Watchful Advocates for Transparent Clean and Honest Governance in Kidapawan (WATCH-Kidapawan) after they came home almost “empty-handed” on September 1 from the Office of Ombudsman for Mindanao in Davao.