Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III’s proposal for the Supreme Court to review a Local Government Code provision that allows local government units (LGUs) to extend cash assistance to judges in their jurisdiction may not be taken lightly by judges who rely on these allowances to get them by.
Then Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Gabriel Ingles decided not to accept the allowances given by the Cebu LGUs in order to maintain his independence, an act that few judges aren’t too keen to follow for understandable reasons.
The senator didn’t make the proposal lightly. His father and former senator, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., authored the Local Government Code including the provision which he is now questioning in light of the Supreme Court’s decision declaring portions of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) as unconstitutional.
For the senator and perhaps to a larger extent the public, the judiciary should also be held into account and asked whether these allowances which Pimentel labeled as “cross border” assistance is similar to, though far below, what the President is extending to the local government units and government agencies in terms of infrastructure and non-infrastructure projects like skills training and education.
One asks why the Supreme Court allows their judges to receive allowances from the budget and savings of the LGUs, yet disallows the DAP which allocates savings from the executive department to other offices outside the executive, in this case Congress.
The DAP has been criticized as yet another form of presidential pork barrel and has even been alleged to be used by President Aquino in persuading senators to vote for the impeachment of then chief justice Renato Corona.
The analogy may be a bit flawed but isn’t the DAP setup a bit similar to what is happening now between the LGUs and the judges? Try as they might, local judges cannot avoid public perception that their rulings in cases involving LGUs may be influenced by the local officials who generously granted them cash allowances.
To be fair though, it is incumbent upon LGUs to support judges assigned to their jurisdiction by the Supreme Court if only to ensure that the country’s justice system functions and serves their constituents on the local level.
Local officials who grant and determine the amount of cash allowances to be given to the judges shouldn’t expect quid pro quo and respect the independence of these magistrates.
Owing to the recent willingness of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno to open the High Court and by extension, the lower courts, to public scrutiny, a review of the cash allowance to judges may be in order.