Press Release
October 29, 2007

Loren proposes to raise to 30 years prescriptive period for graft cases

To reinforce the war on corruption, Sen. Loren Legarda has proposed to lengthen to 30 years the prescriptive period for all graft cases, or the period within which rotten officials or former officials may be validly sued.

The existing prescriptive period is only 15 years for all violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Law, or Republic Act 3019. This means that officials or past officials who violated the law may no longer be lawfully sued now if the offense was committed more than 15 years ago.

Legarda's proposal to extend the prescriptive period is contained in Senate bill 935, which seeks to amend RA 3019.

The senator described the existing 15-year prescriptive period as "inadequate and a grave travesty of justice."

"We find it totally unacceptable and detestable that officials or erstwhile officials are getting away with grave infractions on a mere technicality, on account of the rather lenient prescriptive period," Legarda said.

Legarda, meanwhile, stressed that augmenting the Office of the Ombudsman with additional staff and extra funding would be the best way for Congress to effectively and swiftly build up the war on corruption.

"The Ombudsman seems to be gaining more ground in the fight against corruption, so it definitely deserves the full budgetary support of Congress," Legarda stressed.

Under the proposed 2008 national budget, the Ombudsman is getting a total allocation of P960 million, including a P300-million increase in its operating funds.

Of the fresh funding, P200 million would be used to engage additional personnel -- 54 lawyers, 200 field graft investigators, 150 regional support staff and 25 faculty members for the "Anti-Graft Academy."

The 2007 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranked the Philippines 131st in a survey of 180 countries.

The CPI ranks countries with scores ranging from zero (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean). The Philippines got a CPI score of 2.5.

Six other countries -- Burundi, Honduras, Iran, Libya, Nepal and Yemen -- were in the same ranking as the Philippines.

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