Six more courts for Bacolod soon

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — This city will soon have six more regional and municipal trial courts, with the imminent approval of two bills seeking for their creation, Bacolod Rep. Evelio Leonardia said recently.

The Supreme Court had officially notified Congress it does not oppose the move for more regional and municipal trial courts in Bacolod City, he said.

Lawyer Thelma Baha, deputy SC administrator, told the House committee on justice during its hearing that tackled the Leonardia bills, that the SC has no objection to the creation of the new courts.

In August last year, Leonardia filed House Bill 2490, creating three more RTCs for Bacolod, and HB 2491, for three more MTCCs for the city. If approved, then Negros Occidental will have a total of 28 RTCs and Bacolod will have 10 MTCCs, he said.

Leonardia, a former mayor of Bacolod for three terms, said he wanted to declog the city's courts for faster administration of justice.

As of June 31, last year, the Bacolod solon said there were 7,491 criminal and civil cases in the 14 RTCs, which meant an average spread of 535 cases for each court. 

A sampling from nine of these courts showed an average monthly disposal of four cases only, or only 0.74 per cent disposal rate for each court, which is less than one per cent. Theoretically, this means it will take each court about 11 years to dispose all of the cases it had as of 2013, Leonardia said.

In the case of the MTCCs, its monthly disposal rate is even lower, at 0.61 per cent only. As of June last year, there were 4,563 cases in the city's seven MTCCs, for a spread of 651 cases each. Data from six of these courts last November showed an average disposal rate of only four cases a month, he added.

Aside from these load of cases, the solon also noted that the RTCs of Bacolod also serve as the appellate courts for MTCCs of Murcia and Talisay further loading them with more work and load.  (FREEMAN)