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Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Justice grinds to a halt for one day
THE wheels of justice practically came to a halt yesterday as the Cebu Regional Trial Courts (RTC) and city courts judges went on mass leave to press for a salary increase and other benefits.
Policemen could not file cases against suspected criminals arrested over the weekend as the courts’ receiving sections refused to accept them.
Neither were the bondsmen able to make business as judges also refused to sign bail and commitment orders.
The raffling of cases filed last week was also not done. Monday is the regular raffling day.
RTC Executive Judge Pampio Abarintos, however, said that cases in which policemen could be held liable for arbitrary detention and petitions for writ of habeas corpus were filed in one court.
Court activities proceeded normally in Mandaue City yesterday but courts in Lapu-Lapu City decided not to hold hearings as a “gesture of sympathy” for their colleagues.
The Philippine Judges Association, Philippine Trial Judges League and the Metropolitan and City Judges Association of the Philippines are pressing for the passage of a bill pending before Congress for a 25 percent increase in judges’ salaries and allowances stretched over four years.
The bill is a watered-down version of an original proposal authored by Sen. Francis Pangilinan that seeks the exemption of judges from the Salary Standardization Law.
Mandaue Municipal Trial Court (MTCC) Executive Judge Rogelio Lucmayon said, though, that he did not receive any memorandum on the scheduled mass leave. He only read about it in the newspapers.
All three MTCC courts in Mandaue carried on with their normal court activities yesterday.
Mandaue RTC Executive Judge Marilyn Lagura-Yap also held the scheduled hearings in her sala at Branch 28 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.
There were no hearings in Branches 55 and 56 but it is not because they were joining the mass leave. Court employees said Judge Ulric Cañete and Judge Augustine Vestil were both attending a seminar in Manila.
In Lapu-Lapu City, the RTC and MTCC judges agreed not to hold hearings yesterday and asked litigants to reschedule them.
“There is no mass leave here, but as gesture of sympathy, we asked litigants not to hold hearings today,” Lapu-Lapu RTC Executive Judge Benedicto Cobarde told Sun.Star.
“Except for the hearings, we continue to perform the other functions of the court,” said Cobarde,
adding that hearings will resume tomorrow.
Abarintos said more than 200 cases in the Cebu RTC branches alone were affected by the mass action staged by more than 1,000 judges all over the country.
He gave a higher figure for the cases at the MTCC, which calendars 40 to 60 cases per day for each of the eight branches.
“A janitor at the Government Service Insurance System is receiving a salary higher than ours. A (policeman with a rank of) SPO4 and a PLDT lineman also receives a higher salary,” Abarintos said.
Supreme Court Administrator Presbitero Velasco Jr. said telegrams were sent to the executive judges directing them to make sure that there would be no disruption of work and that the judges were to use their leave credits if they would participate in the action.
“This action is done by the judges to remind and request both chambers of Congress to speed up the process so that the bill can be presented to President Arroyo for ratification,” Velasco said.
The judges fear that if the bill is not immediately acted upon by Congress, it will have to be refiled again next year after the May 2004 elections.
“One year and 10 months, representing the time the bill has spent waiting for it to be ratified, would have been wasted,” Velasco said.
The Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City and Cebu Province chapters passed a joint resolution supporting the mass activity of the judicial branch.
Democrito Barcenas, IBP Cebu City chapter president, said the request of judges for higher pay is reasonable.
“If you are an honest judge, it will really be hard to live on a P30,000 monthly salary,” he said.
The joint resolution will be sent to President Arroyo, Senate President Franklin Drilon, House Speaker Jose de Venecia and the Supreme Court.
Some prosecutors and public attorneys also supported the move, although they said it would be better if they will be included.
Public Attorney Anacleto Debalucos said an associate public attorney (the lowest rank for lawyers at the Public Attorney’s Office) only receives P16,000 a month, an amount that is slightly higher than the pay of a police officer 1.
The prosecutors fare better as Prosecutor Victor Laborte pointed out that a prosecutor 1 (the lowest rank at the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office) is given a monthly salary of P22,000 plus a P5,900 allowance.
Judge Abarintos said that as an RTC executive judge he is receiving a monthly salary of P27,000.
The only other amount given to him is the representation and traveling allowance and the P5,300 allowance given by both the city and provincial governments.
However, the allowances given by the local governments in Cebu are relatively lower compared with Quezon City’s P20,000 per month and Manila’s P40,000 per month.
At present, there are 653 vacant trial courts judges because most lawyers are not interested in working in the judiciary due to low salaries.
The bill, Rationalizing the Pay Scale of the Judiciary, seeks to raise the compensation package to competitive levels in order to attract competent private practitioners to join the judiciary. GAN/ROV(PNA)
(October 7, 2003 issue)
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