After being named the most corrupt economy in Asia, what new depths shall our government plumb? Being named the most corrupt economy, for sure, is one of the lowest possible.

In a grading system with zero as the best possible score and 10 the worst, the Philippines got 9.40, worsening sharply from its grade of 7.80 last year. Indonesia had been deemed Asia’s most corrupt country in 2006.

Until, of course, The Palace starts huffing like a toddler defending itself, with number like these:

Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez said the PERC survey failed to factor in inroads in the fight against corruption. She said that as a result of reforms being implemented in her office, Sandiganbayan conviction rate rose to 77 percent between January and March 2007 alone, from 33 percent in 2005.

The convicted officials include four municipal mayors, a metropolitan trial court judge, and a president of a state university.

In the SWS survey, Ermita said the percentage of companies that were asked to pay bribes for certain transactions significantly went down from 55 percent in 2000 to 36 percent in 2005.

Ermita said one of the anti-corruption initiatives of the government is the doubling of the budget of the Office of the Ombudsman to P960 million.

A P2-billion anti-graft fund has also been established to intensify the drive against tax cheats and smugglers as well as finance the hiring of more investigators for the Ombudsman, Ermita said.

Let's see, Imelda is at large, government's made peace with Erap (despite an unresolved case), Singson's running for Senator, the President herself was caught cheating during the last elections, I can't remember what happened to Atong Ang, I get it now: we get corrupted because we're just a bunch of pussies. And, being called a pussy is, to me, a new depth.