The Talisay City courts need help, too.
Judges were already appointed to two Regional Trial Court (RTC) branches, but they can’t do much without staff.
Executive Justice Gabriel Ingles of the Court of Appeals-Cebu said this needs to be remedied fast by the Supreme Court appointing court employees.
“The presiding judges who are competent were appointed already two years ago but the court cannot yet function because their staff, the Clerk of Court, and personnel of the Office of the Clerk of Court have not been appointed despite more than enough applicants,” said Ingles in a statement yesterday.
If only the Talisay courts had been fully operational, he said, newly filed cases, especially the many drug cases in Talisay and Minglanilla, would have been disposed.
Instead, the cases are referred to the RTC Cebu City.
“It’s an added burden to and contributing to the clogging of dockets at the RTC Cebu City,” he explained.
Ingles called on both the Cebu city and Cebu province chapters of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) to join forces and “lobby” with government decision makers to make the two Talisay City RTCs operational as soon as possible.
“Enacting laws creating additional courts will be of no use, if even courts, whose presiding judges, have already been appointed, cannot perform their task of administering justice simply because there is no support staff,” he said.
During his visit to Cebu last Wednesday, Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez told reporters clogged court dockets in Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu city need to be eased.
As a temporary solution, he announced that at least six judges from the Cebu City RTC branches would be tapped to handle civil cases in all the three court branches in Mandaue and the three others in Lapu-Lapu City.
The Supreme Court has yet to identify the six Cebu City RTC judges.
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