Cebu City judges tasked to help Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu courts
All six trial courts in the cities of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu need help with overloaded court dockets.
Each court has more than a thousand pending cases which is double the ideal load of 500.
To deal with the slow disposition of cases there, the Supreme Court (SC) recently ordered 12 judges in Cebu City to step in and assist their colleagues.
Under a temporary setup, two assisting judges of the Cebu City Regional Trial Court will handle newly filed cases in the courts of Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu.
A memorandum circular was issued by Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez for this stop-gap measure to speed up the work and to help the “overburdened” RTCs in Mandaue and Lapu.
Cebu City courts have 300 to 400 pending cases each.
One result of the slow disposal of cases is jail congestion.
The Mandaue City Jail is the most congested detention facility in Cebu with a male dormitory holding 1,113 detainees in a facility designed for 95 inmates.
In an interview, Executive Justice Gabriel Ingles of the Court of Appeals Cebu Station said the High Court action was a “band-aid solution.”
Additional courts should be created in Mandaue and Lapu-Lapu cities, he said.
“The solution of creating courts in appointing judges does not depend on the Supreme Court alone. There is a need for the cooperation of Congress and the executive branches because first and foremost, it needs funding,” said Ingles.
“At present, the judiciary is allotted less than 1 percent of the total (national) budget which is really insufficient,” he added.
In February 2013, seven new trial courts were created in Mandaue City when President Aquino signed into law Republic Act 10363. A few months later, seven more courts in Lapu-Lapu City were created under RA 10578.
However, none of these courts have been actually set up yet.
There’s not enough budget for this yet, said Marquez but the High Court still needs to address clogged case dockets and jail congestion.
EXTRA STIPENDS?
With the additional workload, some judges in Cebu City are hoping to to receive additional stipends from local governments of Lapu-Lapu and Mandaue cities.
“Of course, we need additional allowances because we have to perform extra work,” said a Cebu City judge who requested anonymity.
All 22 RTC judges in Cebu City presently receive around P35,000 a month from the Cebu city government and another P12,000 from the Cebu provincial government.