Many Pinoys admit bribing cops — poll

Many Filipinos admit to having paid bribes when dealing with the police, getting medical services and securing permits, according to the latest survey of anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI).

TI’s Global Corruption Barometer 2006 survey, released last Dec. 7, found that between 16 to 40 percent of Filipino respondents said they had paid bribes in the past 12 months.

The same percentage of respondents from Romania, Greece, Mexico and Bolivia also reported having paid bribes in the past 12 months.

Conducted by Gallup International from July to September this year as part of its Voice of the People Survey in behalf of TI, the survey had 59,661 respondents from 62 low, middle and high-income countries.

According to the survey, the police are the sector most vulnerable to bribery in the Asia-Pacific region, followed by registry and permits services, the legal system, medical services, education system and utilities and tax revenue system.

"This result presents enormous concerns regarding corruption in processes of law enforcement, particularly when viewed alongside the sector identified as the third most common recipient of bribes, the legal system and judiciary," TI said in its survey.

According to the survey, bribes are most commonly paid around the world to the police, and this sector receives substantially more frequent bribes than other services.

Earlier this year, TI-Philippines criticized the Office of the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan for "performing below" the public’s expectations with only 27 convictions of high-profile cases in 27 years.

According to TI-Philippines, despite the thousands of cases filed with the Office of the Ombudsman and a lesser number elevated to the Sandiganbayan in 27 years — from 1979 to May 2006 — only two governors, a vice-governor, 23 mayors and one vice mayor or a total of 27 high-ranking elective officials were found guilty of graft and corruption.

The elective officials were found guilty of violating Republic Act 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), malversation of public funds, estafa, bribery and theft, the TI said.

Meanwhile, TI-Philippines also found that both the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan suffer from an overload including carryover cases, resulting in the rise in the number of pending cases every year.

TI-Philippines also found out that though the Office of the Ombudsman may have registered a high percentage of cases disposed, about 65.4 percent of these cases had been dismissed.

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez was not available for comment on the TI’s findings as she is attending a United Nations convention against corruption in Jordan that will end on Dec. 14.

The Office of the Ombudsman however said that the corruption barometer of TI was "only based on perception."

Assistant Ombudsman Mark Jalandoni in a statement said the effectiveness of the Philippines’ anti-corruption efforts should be measured by the country’s overall performance in the fight against corruption.