SC, JUDICIARY FAIL TO GET ADDITIONAL FUNDS FROM PALACE, CONGRESS
MANILA, DECEMBER 31, 2010 (STAR) By Jess Diaz - The Supreme Court (SC) and the judiciary have failed to obtain additional funds from Malacañang and Congress despite their repeated threats of protest actions.
Some P14.3 billion for the courts and their personnel is included in the P1.645-trillion 2011 national budget that President Aquino signed on Monday.
That was the same amount the President proposed in August, when he submitted his budget proposal to Congress and before the SC, through spokesman Midas Marquez, and some judges created noise in the media about their clamor for more funds.
Judges had even threatened to go on mass leave.
The P14.3 billion that Aquino allocated for the judiciary represents an increase of P1 billion over this year's level.
According to Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., who heads a subcommittee that handled the judiciary budget, the SC was asking for P1 billion more to cover additional allowances for justices and judges.
He said the lawmakers' principal problem was where to get the money, since giving the courts another P1 billion would mean taking an equal amount from one agency or several agencies.
There is also the question of equity and justice. Other similarly situated government personnel like prosecutors and labor arbiters might demand additional allowances.
That would require the appropriation of taxpayers' money bigger than the additional P1 billion the SC was asking for, Andaya said.
He said justices and judges needed more funds because they wanted the amount of their monthly allowances returned to 100 percent (from the present 70 percent) of their basic salary.
By Andaya's computation, a justice of the high court now receives more than P100,000 a month in total compensation, more than the P95,000 gross monthly pay of President Aquino.
"Justices now get a basic salary of P69,500. They receive 70 percent of their basic pay as allowances, which amount to about P48,650. That means that they receive a total of P118,150 a month," he said.
Clearly, he said justices of the high court are among the highest-paid officials of the government.
He explained that under the Judiciary Reform Act of 2004, members of the judiciary were entitled to receive allowances equivalent to 100 percent of their salaries in four installments.
"So by 2007, they have already doubled their salaries. At that time, a justice of the Supreme Court had a basic pay of P44,500, plus an equal amount in allowances, while a regional trial court judge had a basic salary of P27,900, plus an equal amount in allowances," he said.
Unlike justices and judges, other government workers started receiving an increase in pay only in 2006, when they were given a P1,000 across-the-board adjustment, he said.
"Then came the four-year upgrading of 10 percent per year in 2009 for the rest of the bureaucracy. The position of justices and judges is that they should be covered by this upgrading program and should be given a 10-percent increase every year up to 2012 despite the fact that they received allowances equivalent to 100 percent of their salaries starting in 2007," he said.
He pointed out that their understanding with the judiciary in 2004 when Congress enacted the reform law was that the allowances would answer for future pay adjustments.
"In effect, Congress advanced the salary increases of justices and judges," he stressed.
Funds released
But while the SC and the judiciary failed to get their wish, Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors got theirs with the Budget department's release of the funds for their salary hikes worth over P25 million.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima made the announcement through Department Circular No. 97 released yesterday.
"We in the DOJ are delighted by this development. Not only will this amount to considerable assistance to the individual prosecutors and their respective families, it is also a great boost for the National Prosecution Service as a whole," she said in a statement.
The funds released will pay for the additional salaries and compensations of all 664 prosecutors of NPS under the DOJ as provided for under Republic Act 10071 that upgraded the positions of the fiscals.
De Lima said this amount had already been credited to the DOJ's account last Dec. 23.
She said the department's financial and administrative services have already been ordered to immediately process the salary differentials for fiscal year 2010, which will be recomputed retroactively from May 29 when the new law came into effect.
"It simply shows how our government has finally come to appreciate and acknowledge the hard work, dedication and sacrifices of our prosecutors. They are constantly in the frontline in our fight against criminality and lawlessness," the DOJ chief stressed.
"It is but right that they finally receive what Congress has already determined to be rightfully due to them. I am certain that this only serves to inspire them to perform their duties and responsibilities even better in the coming year," she added. – With Edu Punay
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