Malacañang defies Supreme Court orders on budget cut for judiciary

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang has apparently decided to ignore two Supreme Court rulings when it cut by almost half the budget requested by the judiciary for this year.

President Aquino signed last Monday the 2011 national budget that included the P14.65-billion outlay for the judiciary, but without including the accumulated salary increases of judges and justices and benefits of their retired colleagues under the Special Allowance for the Judiciary (SAJ) that were unpaid over the past four years.

The STAR obtained copies of a status quo ante order dated Oct. 27, 2009 and a resolution dated May 4, 2010, both directing the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to issue funding for the SAJ requirements in compliance with RA 9227, a law that took effect in November 2003 and which granted additional compensation to members of the judiciary.

These orders, covering an amount worth over P900 million, still stand and have not yet been complied with, according to court insiders.

The court orders were submitted to Malacañang and Congress during deliberations of the proposed national budget, but have been apparently ignored.

The sources admitted the orders were also not implemented by the previous administration.

In both directives, the High Court ordered the DBM “to issue the necessary special allotment release order and the corresponding notice of cash allocation to cover funding requirements for the salary increases.”

This was authorized under Executive Order Nos. 611, 719 and 811 (of the previous administration), for justices, judges and judicial officials with the equivalent rank of a Court of Appeals justice and a regional trial court judge for the period of July 1, 2007 to Mar. 31, 2010 and to release the necessary funding beginning April 2010 and every month thereafter.

The executive department was directed to issue funding for “special allowance for the judiciary component of the retirement gratuity and terminal leave benefits of retired justices and judges previously denied funding and, thus, to provide the necessary funding for present and future claims on the SAJ component of the retirement gratuity and terminal leave benefits and the monthly annuities of retired justices, judges and judiciary officials with the equivalent rank of a Court of Appeals justice of a regional trial court judge.”

The orders were approved by the full-court led by then Chief Justice Reynato Puno, and based on the SAJ fund approved by former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. in December 2003.

The High Court’s actions were prompted by a petition for prohibition filed by judges of the trial courts of Iloilo in August 2009 along with the requests made by retired Sandiganbayan justices led by Godofredo Legaspi and other retired justices of CA.

The STAR earlier reported the three biggest organizations of judges nationwide are planning more protest actions over the cut in the judiciary’s proposed budget for 2011 with some of them even willing to take their cause to the streets.

The Philippine Judges Association (PJA), Philippine Trial Judge League and Metropolitan and City Judges Association the Philippines appealed for a bigger budget before the House and the Senate finance committees convened for a bicameral approval of the proposed national budget.

PJA president and Manila Regional Trial Court Judge Antonio Eugenio Jr. said their options would be discussed when over 2,000 first- and second-level court judges convene later this month for a national summit, tentatively set on Jan. 29.

He said the PJA officers would also reassess the “black Monday” protest that they started to express disapproval of the cut in the judiciary’s 2010 budget to P14.3 billion.

Court Administrator and spokesman Jose Midas Marquez, who supervises the trial court judges nationwide, refused to comment on the judges’ plans.

Marquez though took the initiative to appeal the decisions of both House and Senate and submitted motions for reconsideration seeking at least P3.5 billion in addition to the approved P14.3-billion budget for the judiciary.

But his appeal was denied by Congress. Marquez also asked for an additional P1.5 billion to comply with the SQA order on SAJ , but was again denied.