BY PETER TABINGO

THE numbers are in and the grafters and the corrupt clearly are winning.

In the last 10 years starting 1999, the Office of the Ombudsman filed 4,056 indictments against public officials, down 66 percent from 11,933 cases filed between 1989 and 1998.

This at a time of widespread perception that corruption has become worse than it was during the time of President Ferdinand Marcos.

The sharpest decline in the Ombudsman’s performance happened between 2001 and 2008 during the Arroyo administration when the lead anti-graft agency averaged only 337 cases yearly.

Under the Estrada government, the Ombudsman filed 698 cases in 1998, 697 in 1999 and 600 in 2000.

In fact, the Ombudsman posted its single worst year in 2007 when it filed only 93 cases under the present Ombudsman, Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez, an 82 percent drop from 520 indictments in 2006.

In her more than three years as Ombudsman since November 2005, Gutierrez has filed less than 1,200 cases at the Sandiganbayan.

This pales in comparison with the record of the first-ever Ombudsman, Conrado Vasquez, who booked 9,834 cases during his stint from 1988 to May 1995. During that period, Vasquez posted an average of 1,311 cases every year.

Aniano Desierto, who replaced Vasquez and served as Ombudsman until his retirement in October 2002, filed 5,154 cases or an annual average of 687.

Simeon Marcelo, who occupied the post between October 2002 to November 2005, posted the lowest number of cases filed, averaging only 183 cases each year during his three-year stay or a total of 551.

While the Ombudsman has been dawdling on the job, the Sandiganbayan also apparently has been loafing.

From disposing 11,649 cases in its first 10 years (1979-1988), the graft court had its banner decade from 1989 to 1998 when it disposed of 12,374 cases.

Between 1999 and 2008 however, its performance plummeted a 52 percent to just 5,950 cases resolved.

Despite the slow case disposal, the Sandiganbayan still ended up with a lower case load of only 2,164 pending cases as of January 2009 compared to 3,272 in January 1999.