EDITORIAL - TRO’d reforms

When you look at the path of reforms in government, it will be littered with judicial orders restraining or reversing the housecleaning efforts of executive agencies. Certain officials of the Commission on Elections have already groused that the Supreme Court should just take over the functions of the poll body. 

In the latest controversy, finance officials may also feel like tossing the work of Customs to the courts. Executive Judge Marino de la Cruz Jr. of the Manila Regional Trial Court earlier issued a 72-hour temporary restraining order, stopping the Bureau of Customs from transferring 15 district collectors to the Customs Policy Research Office.

The BOC revamp is being undertaken amid criticism of low collections and corruption in one of the government’s biggest revenue-earning agencies. The affected Customs collectors questioned their transfer, saying it violated civil service rules. Yesterday, with one less petitioner in the case, Judge Felicitas Laron-Cacanindin of the Manila City RTC Branch 17 extended the 72-hour TRO to 17 days.

The extension raised concern that the petitioners will go through all the Manila judges, securing TRO extensions from each all the way to 2016. The concern is not baseless. In the past years, certain TROs have lasted more than a year.

While the judiciary must interpret laws and rules, the public has come to view the issuance of TROs as money-making ventures for judges and justices. If the Manila RTC wants to dispel a similar impression in the case filed by the Customs collectors, their petition must be settled as soon as possible.

The lack of judicial restraint would not be a cause for concern if the nation’s chief magistrate herself has not pointed out that “hoodlums in robes” continue to bedevil the judiciary. Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno recently urged lawyers to help purge the judiciary of misfits and the corrupt.

In Indonesia, a highly effective, independent anti-corruption commission was placed beyond the reach of the judiciary. The commission, composed of individuals with proven integrity, investigated and sent even members of the judiciary to prison for corruption.

By all means, civil servants should invoke the law in protecting their security of tenure, and the courts should provide that protection. The circumstances surrounding the Customs case, however, give urgency to an early settlement of the issues raised. Judge Cacanindin is expected to show the public that the TRO in this case is truly temporary.