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he Office of the Ombudsman disputed Friday results of the latest Transparency International corruption perception index that showed the Philippines slipping further in the 2007 index.

The country was ranked 131st, along with Burundi, Honduras, Iran, Libya, Nepal and Yemen, in TI’s 2007 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which scored 180 countries based on the degree to which corruption is perceived among public officials and politicians.

Ombudsman Ma. Merceditas Gutierrez said the country slid further down the corruption index because the 2007 CPI covered more countries than in 2006, "and not due to a perception of worsening corruption in the Philippines."

Gutierrez said the 2007 CPI ranked 180 countries while the 2006 CPI only covered 163 countries. "On the other hand, the Philippines CPI score for both years remains the same: 2.5."

She said that even TI had affirmed that a country’s rank can change if new nations enter the index or if others drop out.

The CPI ranks countries with scores ranging from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (highly clean).

In its report, TI cited Austria, Bahrain, Belize, Bhutan, Jordan, Laos, Macao, Malta, Mauritius, Oman, Papua New Guinea and Thailand as examples of "deteriorations from CPI 2006 to CPI 2007."

It also said that "improvements can be observed from 2006 to 2007 for Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Dominica, Italy, Macedonia, Namibia, Romania, Seychelles, South Africa, Suriname and Swaziland."

Gutierrez, meanwhile, said her office is exerting all efforts to curb graft and corruption in the country.

Aside from the prosecution of high-profile cases, she said the Ombudsman has also launched a massive corruption prevention and information dissemination campaign.

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