The Office of the Ombudsman belied on Saturday reports that the anti-graft body was remiss in its constitutional duty to stamp out corruption in government.

In a statement issued by Assistant Ombudsman Jose de Jesus Jr., the anti-graft body said the improved ranking of the Philippines in the Transparency International’s (TI) 2009 corruption perception index (CPI) should ‘inspire Filipinos, government officials and private sector to exert more efforts” to fight malfeasance in the country.

De Jesus issued the statement after published reports quoted retired Judge Dolores Espanol, head of the TI-Phillippines, as saying that the country’s latest CPI score is a “misperception” of the government initiatives because it allegedly failed to consider the recent Ombudsman decisions on several controversial cases.

The Philippines ranked 139th among 180 countries perceived to be the most corrupt in the 2009 CPI. It ranked 141st last year.

De Jesus said Espanol should have first checked her data before she made her inaccurate criticisms.

The anti-graft body spokesman explained that the panel in the controversial NBN-ZTE case exonerated First Gentleman Mike Arroyo because of insufficiency of evidence, while it refused to act on President Arroyo due to her immunity from suit.

He said contrary to Español’s allegation, the panel did not “absolve” the principal respondents in the NBN-ZTE case.

“In fact, former Commission on Elections Chairman Benjamin Abalos and then National Economic Development Authority Chairman, and now Social Security System President Romulo Neri were indicted by the panel for graft,” De Jesus said.