Supreme Court orders DBM: Give judges' pay

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) has ordered the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to release the special allowance for the judiciary (SAJ) worth over P900 million to pay for the salary increase and special allowance of over 2,000 justices, judges and court officials since 2007.

In a resolution, the SC directed the DBM to release the SAJ collected from filing fees and other court fees nationwide.

“The salary increases authorized under Executive Order Nos. 611, 719, 811, and 900 and subsequent issuances pursuant to the SSL (Salary Standardization Law), corresponding to the amount of the SAJ of justices, judges and judiciary officials with the equivalent rank of a Court of Appeals justice or Regional Trial Court judge, be sourced from the SAJ fund,” the SC order stated.

The allocation of funds for SAJ is in compliance with Republic Act 9227 passed in November 2003 granting additional compensation to members of the judiciary.

The judges earlier demanded that the executive department pay for their unpaid compensations so the SAJ would remain intact since it serves as a contingency fund of the judiciary.

SC spokesman and court administrator Midas Marquez told a press conference over the weekend that the SC issued the order after making sure the SAJ funds would be enough to cover the unpaid allowance of judges.

“The court, through the SAJ, is now paying for the unpaid special allowances of our judges. But we don’t know if this will be sustained in the future,” he said.

The SC took note of the agreement forged by the DBM with the Philippine Judges Association, Philippine Trial Judges League Inc. and Metropolitan and City Judges Association of the Philippines last April for the restoration of full special salaries of judges and allowance, payment of adjusted salaries under the Salary Standardization Law, and payment of special allowances, apart from the basic salary.

Marquez said over P107 million that the DBM released for the judges only covered the amount of increment in their allowances.

This means the executive department still did not cover the full special allowances unpaid over the past four years.

“And it only covered around 400 judges,” he said.

The three groups of judges were planning to hold protest actions earlier this year following the reduction in the judiciary’s proposed budget for 2011.

Malacañang slashed by almost half the judiciary’s proposed budget of P27.1 billion for 2011 and approved only P14.65 billion.

The judges appealed to Malacañang to approve a bigger budget before the House of Representatives and the Senate finance committees convened for a bicameral approval of the proposed national budget.