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Tuesday, May 24, 2005
4 High Court officials granted allowances
By Benjamin B. Pulta
MANILA -- Four senior officials of the Supreme Court (SC), including the son of outgoing Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide Jr., have managed to convince the High Tribunal to hand them special allowances originally intended for judges in lower courts.
The en banc ruling overturns an earlier recommendation by the SC that the four, all employed in the High Court, cannot claim the fringe benefit.
The grant retroacts to November of 2003 and can easily set back the tribunal's coffers by millions.
Associate Justice Romeo Callejo Sr. and Senior Associate Justice Reynato S. Puno dissented from the majority ruling.
Callejo, who was supposedly the assigned "ponente" in the case, had cited the strain on the judiciary's resources that the allowances would create.
Sources among the SC employees said among those who will benefit from the special allowances, which run to 100 percent of the basic monthly salary of the personnel, are Davide's son Bryan Hillary Davide, SC Program Management Office (PMO) Chief Evelyn Toledo-Dumdum, judicial staff officer Analisa Ty and SC Fiscal Management and Budget Office (FMBO) Chief Corazon Ordoņez.
Davide's son was among the SC officials who sought a ruling from the tribunal to allow their inclusion in the "special allowance" but later withdrew his name when the case was appealed. He will stand to benefit under the granted request, however.
The four, in their original plea, claimed that their position, being under Salary Grade 29, should entitle them to the same benefits granted to Regional Trial Court (RTC) judges who have the same pay rank under what they claim was a labor law principle of "equal pay for equal work".
Of the four however, only Ty is a lawyer, which is a prerequisite for judges.
A Salary Grade 29 official earns about P26,000 as basic pay and with the special allowance, the amount doubles. This is provided for under Republic Act (RA) 9227, which is "An Act Granting Additional Compensation in the Form of Special Allowances for Justices, Judges and All Other Positions in the Judiciary with the Equivalent Rank of Justices of the Court of Appeals and Judges of the Regional Trial Court and for other Purposes."
The law took effect on Nov. 11, 2003 or 15 days after its publication on Oct. 25 and 27, 2003.
The core of RA 9227 is Section 2, which provides that all justices, judges and all other positions in the judiciary with the equivalent rank of justices of the Court of Appeals (CA) and judges of the RTC as authorized under existing laws shall be granted special allowances equivalent to 100 percent of the basic monthly salary specified for their respective salary grades under the Salary Standardization Law.
The allowances are to be implemented for a period of four years.
The grant of special allowances shall be implemented uniformly in such sums or amounts equivalent to 25 percent of the basic salaries of the positions covered hereof.
Subsequent implementation shall be in such sums and amounts and up to the extent only that can be supported by the funding source.
Coincidentally, last October, a ruling by the High Court denied a request of the assistant court administrators to upgrade their salaries and privileges to that of a presiding justice of the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA).
The SC, at the time, however granted the special allowance to the assistant court administrators, who were granted the allowance of a RTC judge with the highest earned increment and the assistant clerks of court and the division clerks of court of the CA, and the executive clerks of court of the Sandiganbayan, whose allowances will be computed from the pay of a Metropolitan Trial Court (MTC) judge.
(May 24, 2005 issue)
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