By CARMELA FONBUENA, abs-cbnNEWS.com/Newsbreak | 02/24/2009 3:46 PM *** The Ombudsman was on radio this morning being interviewed by Anthony Taberna and she said, "Tunying naman. Hindi na nga kami natutulog. When I arrived, there were 21,000 cases. We solved 18,000 of those." Well, well, well. It turned out that she included dismissed, archived, etc cases in the 18,000 her office supposedly solved. And now this news from the world Bank, whose processes and procedures are as multi-layered as a honeycomb. Or as Bert Hoffman would put it, "Our processes are rigorous." I think so too. And she is caught lying again. Liar, liar, pants on fire.... *** Contrary to the Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez's claim that her office knew of the irregularities in the World Bank-financed roads project only last November 2007, the multilateral bank said Tuesday that the anti-graft agency was aware of the issue three years ago. As early as May 2006, World Bank investigators have perso...

Malou Mangahas was my brave and fearless editor at the Manila Times, a newspaper sued for libel and was later shut down after it reported a former President as an "unwitting" godfather to a corrupt deal. The President has since been deposed. And so the saga of corruption ripening in the Philippines like a rotten fruit continues. *** BY MALOU MANGAHAS Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism CORRUPTED to the core, and entirely, by a "cartel" of kickback-takers with support from the highest levels of the Philippine government. In gist, this is the damning conclusion of the World Bank’s anti-corruption unit, the powerful and dreaded Department of Institutional Integrity (INT) regarding the Bank-funded National Road Improvement and Management Project-1 (NRIMP-1). According to the INT, "the entire NRIMP-1 Project has been corrupted," and had put "at least $30 to $45 million of the entire $150-million loan at risk," or lost to "a cartel...