ALTHOUGH the Cebu City Hall of Justice is generally safe, Executive Judge Gilbert Moises does not want to take any chances.
The head of the local judiciary is set to raise before Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno today the need for more security guards at the courthouse to help ensure the safety of judges, lawyers, court employees, and litigants.
Sereno is in Cebu City today to grace a couple of events.
“We’re safe here, but we’re hoping to get more security guards,” Moises said in an interview on Tuesday.
Moises is also asking the Mabolo Police Station to deploy more policemen at the courthouse.
Just recently, some policemen assigned at the Cebu City Hall of Justice were pulled out and assigned to other areas in Mabolo.
Other specific details were kept confidential for security purposes.
“Security arrangements are intact particularly in the third and fourth floors. At the ground floor, we made arrangements with the building consultant on security that all persons who enter shall be searched. All firearms, including that of the police, should be deposited at the depository section,” Moises said.
The Supreme Court has been renting the third and fourth floors of the Qimonda IT Center at the North Reclamation Area to serve as Cebu City’s temporary courthouse.
The old Palace of Justice, located at the Capitol compound, was deemed unfit for occupancy following the 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Cebu and Bohol in October 2013.
Moises condemned the killing of lawyer Jonnah John Ungab who was gunned down by an unknown assailant shortly after he left the Cebu City Hall of Justice past 11 a.m. last Monday.
“It is an act that is worth condemning by any normal person. He was a lawyer who is presumed to be only doing his legal responsibilities to his client, who protected the interest of his client which every lawyer is sworn to do,” he said.
“There are just people who cannot understand that, and they take the law into their own hands. I hope our law enforcement agencies would exert extra effort to bring these people to justice,” he added.
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