THE Sandiganbayan special anti-graft court and the Office of the Ombudsman have started putting up better performance numbers coming off a two-year drop due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
Latest figures released by the Sandiganbayan Judicial Records Division showed the court has disposed 244 cases between January to July 2022 despite posting zero in the first month of the year.
Among the court’s seven divisions, it was the Fourth Division that resolved the biggest number of cases with 93, followed by the Second Division with 41.
In 2021, the anti-graft court posted a total of 366 cases resolved compared to 340 cases the year before.
In 2019 before the pandemic forced its operations to slow down, case disposal was at 1,114 cases — second highest in 23 years.
Based on the same data, the Ombudsman has already filed 197 cases in just the first seven months of 2022, surpassing its full 2021 total of just 163 cases.
While it started the year slowly with just seven cases filed in the first two months due to restrictions in movement during a surge in COVID-19 numbers, the anti-corruption agency has been hitting double-digits in filing criminal charges against ranking public officials.
It filed 60 in March, 30 in April, 23 in May, 37 in June, and 40 in July.
In the same period, prosecutors scored 65 convictions against erring government officials and employees, with 41 convicted after trial and 24 pleading guilty to lesser offenses in lieu of lighter penalties.
With the Ombudsman hitting its strides, the Sandiganbayan’s active case load has against breached the 3,000-mark with 3,025 pending cases.
