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Friday, January 23, 2004
Busted phones, smelly CRs bug judges
By Giovannie A. Nilles
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
HOUNDED by problems on telephone lines that get disconnected every now and then, an erratic water supply system and comfort rooms that are too smelly for comfort, a court official wants to retain a portion of the filing fees to cover the court’s day-to-day operations.
Cebu Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Pampio Abarintos is yet to ask the Supreme Court (SC), which has control over its operation funds, to be allowed to address the problems this way.
As of yesterday, nine of the 22 Regional Trial Court branches in Cebu City could not be reached by phone because their lines were cut since last December and early this month.
Half of the eight comfort rooms at the Palace of Justice are also not functioning. They have been padlocked for quite some time now.
Those that are functioning stink that people can’t help but make negative comments whenever they pass by the comfort rooms.
The janitors, though, have a funny way of looking at the problem. Two of them said that the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center inmates are to blame for the stench as they use the toilets in droves.
Judge Abarintos said these problems are just temporary and it can be solved as soon as the system on payments is in place.
He lamented that payment for telephone bills sometimes takes a month to be processed.
“Sending the bill to the Supreme Court takes a week. Then it takes another week to process the check plus one more to send this to Cebu City. Roughly, it takes us about a month just to get the bills paid,” he said.
On several occasions, it was disheartening to note that even the Office of the Executive Judge, which is the direct contact between the High Court and the local courts, has no working telephone line, he said.
Judge Abarintos had thought of retaining a portion of the filing fees, which sometimes reach millions in one month, to solve this problem.
“Anyway, this is always subject to liquidation. We can send them the bills as soon as we have paid for them,” he said.
The situation was further aggravated when Capitol cut off the court’s water supply.
Judge Abarintos said the courts used to get its supply directly from the Buhisan dam, just as the Capitol does. However, the Provincial Government recently cut this off after citing the memorandum of agreement between the Department of Justice and the SC, stating that payments for utility bills shall be handled solely by the High Court.
“Previously, the local governments paid for portions of the utility consumption,” he said.
He added that the problem on water is only temporary, though, as the Metropolitan Cebu Water District recently gave the courts its own water line.
(January 23, 2004 issue)
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