EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN IN THE PHILIPPINES

Transcription

1 1 EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN IN THE PHILIPPINES Jon S.T. Quah, Ph.D. Anti-Corruption Consultant Singapore Website: I. Philippines Reliance on Multiple Anti-Corruption Agencies Unlike Singapore and Hong Kong, which rely on a single independent anti-corruption agency (ACA) like the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) and the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) respectively, the Philippines has relied on multiple ACAs to implement its anti-corruption laws. The other Asian countries which also rely on multiple ACAs are China, India, Taiwan and Vietnam (Quah, 2011, pp ). The fight against corruption in the Philippines began in May 1950, when President Quirino created the Integrity Board consisting of five members to investigate complaints of graft and corruption against civil servants. However, this first ACA was short-lived as the lack of public support led to its dissolution five months later (Quah 1982, p. 159). The Philippines is the Asian country with the most anti-corruption measures as it has relied on seven laws and 19 presidential ACAs since it began its fight against corruption in the 1950s (Quah, 2011, p. 135). The reliance on multiple ACAs can be attributed to the frequent changes in political leadership in the Philippines because each President has established new ACAs or abolished existing ones without evaluating their effectiveness. For example, from May 1950 to January 1966, five ACAs were formed and dissolved as there were five changes in political leadership during that period. Similarly, President Ferdinand Marcos created another five ACAs during his 21 years in power because the first three agencies were ineffective and lasted between eight months and two years (Quah, 1982, pp ). Edna Co et al. (2007, p. 21) have correctly questioned why new ACAs are created by a new administration in the Philippines without evaluating the effectiveness of the existing ones thus: Each administration created flagship programs and projects, sending the message that the political leadership was doing something against graft and corruption. However, the creation of such commissions and bodies may have been redundant and costly for the government. Although this may not be an efficient way of doing things the creation of these bodies itself should be examined to ascertain whether or not they contribute to the commission of corruption in the public administrative system. An attendant question one could raise is why a new program needs to be created each time a new administration steps in instead of merely building upon past efforts. There are four ACAs in the Philippines today namely, the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB), which is the lead ACA, the Presidential Commission on Good Governance (PCGG), the Inter-Agency Anti-Graft Coordinating Council (IACC) and the Governance Commission

2 2 for Government Owned or Controlled Corporations (GCG). The OMB or Tanodbayan was originally established in July 1979 by President Ferdinand Marcos and reorganized by President Corazon Aquino in May President Aquino also created the PCGG to identify and retrieve the money stolen by the Marcos family and its cronies. The IACC was the first ACA formed by President Joseph Estrada in August 1999 as part of his anti-corruption policy. As the OMB focuses on public sector corruption, the GCG was constituted under Republic Act No or the GOCC Governance Act of 2011 to act as a central advisory, monitoring, and oversight body with authority to formulate, implement and coordinate policies governing the 158 government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), which include government financial institutions, government instrumentalities with corporate powers and government corporate entities (GCG, 2014). This short paper focuses on the evaluation of the effectiveness of the OMB in curbing corruption in the Philippines because it is the lead ACA and has been allocated more personnel and budget than the PCGG, IACC and GCG. More specifically, the following section identifies the OMB s limitations in curbing corruption in the Philippines and the concluding section provides some recommendations for enhancing its effectiveness. II. The OMB s Limitations in Curbing Corruption in the Philippines According to Section 13, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution, as well as Republic Act No (otherwise known as the Ombudsman Act of 1989 ), the OMB performs these five functions: (1) investigation of anomalies and inefficiency; (2) prosecution of graft cases in the Sandiganbayan (Special Anti-Graft Court); (3) administrative adjudication: The OMB has disciplinary control over all elective and appointed officials except for members of the Congress and Judiciary and impeachable officials; (4) public assistance: The OMB can require public officials and employees to give assistance to the public; and (5) graft prevention by analyzing anti-corruption measures and increasing public awareness and cooperation (OMB, 2009, pp. 7-8). However, in the OMB s 2011 Annual Report, its four functions were described as investigation, prosecution, public assistance and corruption prevention, without any explanation why administrative adjudication was no longer performed by the OMB (p. ii). Table 1: Growth of OMB Personnel, Year* Personnel , , , ,193 *Data for 2007, 2010 and 2012 are not available from the OMB website because the Annual Reports for these years could not be accessed. Source: OMB ( ), various pages.

3 3 Table 1 shows that the number of personnel in the OMB has fluctuated between 957 in 2005 to 1,193 in The OMB s Central Office in Diliman is divided into the Office for Legal Affairs and the Preliminary Investigation, Administrative Adjudication and Review Bureau. The Ombudsman is assisted by an Overall Deputy Ombudsman, the Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, the Deputy Ombudsman for the Military and Other Law Enforcement Offices, and the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OMB, 2009, pp ). The OMB is under-staffed, and according to Simeon V. Marcelo (2005, p. 1), a former Ombudsman, it is designed to fail because of its crippling lack of resources. To illustrate the OMB s severe lack of resources, Marcelo compared its personnel and budget with those of Hong Kong s ICAC in 2004 and found that the OMB s field investigator-bureaucracy ratio of 1:17,045 compared unfavourably with the ICAC s ratio of 1:208. Furthermore, the OMB s staff-population ratio of 1:71,340 was much higher than the ICAC s ratio of 1:5,354. In terms of per capita expenditure, the ICAC s figure of 696 pesos exceeded that of the OMB s 6 pesos by 116 times (Marcelo, 2005, p. 3). Table 2: Budget of OMB, Year Budget 2005 US$12,000, US$17,946, US$19,600, US$20,868, US$24,248, US$25,201, US$36,785,125 Sources: OMB (2006, pp. 73, 91; 2008, p. 27; 2009, p. 10; 2010, p. 96; 2012, p. 46; 2013, p. iii). From Table 2 it can be seen that the OMB s budget has increased gradually from US$12 million in 2005 to US$19.6 million in 2008, to US$20.8 million in 2009, to US$24.2 million in 2010, to US$25.2 million in 2011, and to US$36.7 million in In other words, the OMB s budget has trebled during However, a comparative analysis of the OMB s personnel and budgets for 2005, 2008, and 2011 with the personnel and budgets for the same years with Hong Kong s ICAC, Singapore s CPIB, Indonesia s Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK), and India s lead ACA, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Tables 3, 4 and 5 show that the staff-population ratios and per capita expenditures of the OMB, KPK and CBI are substantially lower than those of the ICAC and CPIB. Table 3: Personnel of Five Asian ACAs, ACA 2005 Personnel 2008 Personnel 2011 Personnel Hong Kong ICAC 1,194 1,263 1,298 Singapore CPIB Philippines OMB 957 1,007 1,193

4 4 Indonesia KPK India CBI 4,711 4,874 5,666 Sources: Quah (2011, pp ); ICAC (2011, p. 83; 2012, p. 22); Republic of Singapore (2012, p. 359); OMB (2006, pp. 73, 91; 2012, pp. 41 and 46); CBI (2006, pp. 38, 44; 2012, pp. 70 and 94); Davidsen, Juwono and Timberman (2006, p. 52); and Pramudatama (2012). Table 4: Budgets of Five Asian ACAs, ACA 2005 Budget 2008 Budget 2011 Budget Hong Kong ICAC US$85 m US$97.7 m US$106.1 m Singapore CPIB US$7.7 m US$11.2 m US$18.9 m Philippines OMB US$12 m US$19.6 m US$25.2 m Indonesia KPK US$18 m US$24.6 m US$57 m India CBI US$30.3 m US$52.1 m US$64 m Sources: As in Table 3. Table 5: Staff-Population Ratios of Five Asian ACAs, ACA 2005 SPR 2008 SPR 2011 SPR ICAC 1: 5,863 1: 5,780 1: 5,701 CPIB 1: 53,086 1: 56,163 1: 38,405 OMB 1: 85,057 1: 89,076 1:79,883 CBI 1: 229,505 1:243,373 1:220,649 KPK 1: 729,836 1: 433,888 1: 324,734 Sources: Same as in Table 3. Table 5 confirms that the OMB s staff-population ratio has improved from 1:85,057 in 2005 to 1:79,883 in Similarly, Table 6 shows that its per capita expenditure has increased from US$0.15 in 2005 to US$0.22in 2008, and to US$0.26 in Table 6: Per Capita Expenditures of Five Asian ACAs, ACA 2005 PCE 2008 PCE 2011 PCE ICAC US$12.14 US$13.40 US$14.34 CPIB US$1.79 US$2.32 US$3.57 OMB US$0.15 US$0.22 US$0.26 KPK US$0.08 US$0.14 US$0.23 CBI US$0.03 US$0.04 US$0.05 Sources: As in Table 3. Apart from its lack of resources, the OMB is not a specialized ACA dedicated solely to combating corruption because it is also responsible for disciplinary control and public assistance. This means that the OMB does not enjoy the two advantages of specialized ACAs, namely, the centralization of all necessary information and intelligence about corruption and the resolution of coordination problems among multiple agencies through vertical

5 5 integration (Meagher, 2005, p. 80). The OMB s third limitation is that it only has jurisdiction over public officials but not those employed in private organizations. More importantly, the reliance on multiple ACAs has not benefited the Philippines as the proliferation of these agencies has contributed to duplication, layering and turf wars (Quimson, 2006, p. 30). There is also no coordination or cooperation among the many ACAs, which compete for recognition, staff, and resources because they are under-staffed and poorly funded (Quah, 2011, p. 145). III. Three Recommendations for Enhancing the OMB s Effectiveness as an ACA 1. The OMB should reduce its workload by focusing only on its anti-corruption functions and relinquishing its function of public assistance to other public agencies. Unlike Singapore s CPIB and Hong Kong s ICAC, the OMB is not a dedicated ACA because of its performance of the investigation, prevention and prosecution of corruption cases in addition to the functions of disciplinary control (until recently) and public assistance. The function of disciplinary control should be performed by the Civil Service Commission and not the OMB. Similarly, the function of providing public assistance should be the responsibility of those public agencies concerned with the social welfare of citizens and should not be under the OMB s purview. 2. The OMB s personnel and budget should be increased substantially to improve its staff-population ratio and per capita expenditure in The comparative analysis of the personnel and budgets of the OMB in 2005, 2008 and 2011 with the personnel and budgets of the ICAC in Hong Kong, the CPIB in Singapore, the KPK in Indonesia, and the CBI in India for the same years has shown that the OMB is severely under-staffed and under-funded when compared to the ICAC and CPIB. The OMB s severe lack of manpower and financial resources is reflected in its staff-population ratio of 1:79,883 and per capita expenditure of US$0.26 in 2011, which is an improvement of its staff-population ratio of 1:89,076 and per capita expenditure of US$0.22 in 2008, and its staff-population ratio of 1:85,057 and per capita expenditure of US$0.15 in Table 7: OMB s Staff-Population Ratio and Per Capita Expenditure, Item Personnel 957 1,007 1,193 2,000 Budget US$12 m US$19.6 m US$25.2 m US$50 m Population 81.4 million 89.7 million 95.3 million 100 million Staff-Population 1: 85,057 1: 89,076 1: 79,883 1: 50,000 Ratio Per Capita Expenditure US$0.15 US$0.22 US$0.26 US$0.50 As the population in the Philippines is expected to reach 100 million during the third or fourth quarter of 2014 (Crisostomo, 2014), I recommend that the OMB s personnel be increased to 2,000 and its budget raised to US$50 million for Financial Year With this substantial increase in its manpower and budget, Table 7 shows that the OMB s staff-

6 6 population ratio will be improved to 1:50,000 and its per capita expenditure will be increased to US$0.50 in Enhance the quality of the OMB s personnel by hiring qualified candidates from various disciplines and providing those selected with relevant training in anticorruption functions. Unfortunately, the OMB s Annual Reports do not provide sufficient details of the profile of its personnel. However, the impression given is that most of the OMB s personnel are lawyers or prosecutors. In view of this, it is recommended that the OMB enhance the quality of its personnel by hiring also qualified candidates from the social sciences such as economists, political scientists, psychologists, and sociologists and providing them with on-the-job training in the investigation, prevention and prosecution of corruption cases. Instead of relying on legal personnel only, the OMB should enhance its effectiveness by hiring qualified candidates from other disciplines also. REFERENCES CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) (2006). Annual Report New Delhi. CBI (2012). Annual Report New Delhi. Co, E.E.A., Lim, M., Lao, M.E.J., and Juan, L.J. (2007). Minimizing Corruption: Philippine Democracy Assessment. Pasig City: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Philippine Office. Crisostomo, S. (2014). Philippine population set to hit 100 m. PhilStar.com, January 5, available at 100m (accessed on March 30, 2014). Davidsen, S., Juwono, V. And Timberman, D.G. (2006). Curbing Corruption in Indonesia : A Survey of National Policies and Approaches. Jakarta and Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies and United States-Indonesia Society. GCG (Governance Commission for Government Owned or Controlled Corporations). (2014). The GCG s website is available at (accessed on March 30, 2014). ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption). (2006) Annual Report. Hong Kong. ICAC (2011) Budget. Hong Kong. Available at /2011/eng/pdf/head072.pdf (accessed on December 10, 2013). ICAC (2012) Annual Report. Hong Kong.

7 7 Marcelo, S.V. (2005). Combating Corruption in the Philippines. In Combating Corruption in the Philippines: Are we plundering our chances or doing it better? Quezon City: National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Working Paper Series No. 2, pp Meagher, P. (2005). Anti-Corruption Agencies: Rhetoric versus Reality. Journal of Policy Reform, 8 (1), OMB (Office of the Ombudsman). (2006). Annual Report Diliman. OMB (2009). Annual Report Diliman. OMB (2012). Annual Report Diliman. Pramudatama, R. (2012). KPK looks to public in House row. Jakarta Post, June 23. Quah, J.S.T. (1982). Bureaucratic Corruption in the ASEAN Countries: A Comparative Analysis of Their Anti-Corruption Strategies. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 13 (1), Quah, J.S.T. (2011). Curbing Corruption in Asian Countries: An Impossible Dream? Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing. Quimson, G. (2006). National Integrity Systems Transparency International Country Study Report Philippines Berlin: Transparency International. Republic of Singapore (2012). Singapore Budget 2012: Annex to the Expenditure Estimates. Singapore: Budget Division, Ministry of Finance. Available at budget_2012/revenue_expenditure/attachment/48%20pmo%20annex% pdf (accessed on December 10, 2013).