The Office of the Ombudsman has asked for an additional P675 million to augment its proposed P5.8 billion budget for 2025.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires appealed to the House appropriations panel, saying that the additional funds will be earmarked for the creation of 60 lawyer positions for additional offices of field investigation (P257.846 million); provision of satellite offices (P400 million); and hiring of casual/contractual employees for the project on digitalization (P18 million).
During the same hearing, the Ombudsman also said that his office is working on addressing the dismissal of cases due to inordinate delay by going straight to the preliminary investigation instead of conducting a fact-finding investigation before the preliminary investigation.
“To speed up the investigation of cases, of complaints, we are trying to merge now the fact-finding office and the preliminary investigation office, so that when a complaint is filed, immediately it will be assigned to a lawyer who will conduct a case evaluation,” Martires said.
“The lawyer will determine what to do next and determine the result: whether to proceed with the preliminary investigation or to recommend for the dismissal of the case or to recommend for a case buildup,” he added.
During case buildup, the case will either be archived or provisionally dismissed, he also said.
Martires also said that the Ombudsman is filing cases not necessarily before the Sandiganbayan or anti-graft court.
“They’re also saying that there are only a few cases that we have filed in court. [But] they’re only looking into the cases that were filed with the Sandiganbayan,” Martires said.
“The only cases now that are being resolved by the Office of the Ombudsman are already within the jurisdiction of the lower courts, no longer within the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan. We have filed more cases with the lower court than with the Sandiganbayan,” he added.—LDF, GMA Integrated News
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