By Jeffrey Damicog
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has started a “decongestion project” meant to slash and reduce the backlog of over 10,000 cases with pending petitions for review.
Department of Justice (MANILA BULLETIN)
“This should make a dent on the number of unresolved petitions in the docket,” said DOJ spokesman and Undersecretary Markk Perete on Friday, Nov. 29.
Petitions for review are filed before the DOJ’s Office of the Secretary to appeal the rulings prosecutors made on cases which were either dismissed or approved for filing of charges in court due to findings of probable cause.
The spokesman said the DOJ begun its “decongestion project” back in August to address the backlog of pending petitions for review.
“We started this since about three months ago,” Perete told reporters.
“On the average, the project has yielded around 80 draft resolutions per week on pending petitions for review,” he noted.
Under the decongestion project, Perete explained that teams were created and headed by DOJ Undersecretaries and Assistant Secretaries to help Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra resolve the pending petitions for review.
“Each Usec and Asec head a team of prosecutors which evaluate, and review, the petitions,” he disclosed.
Recently, Guevarra revealed that when he got appointed justice secretary back in April 2018, he was faced with a huge backlog of petitions for review.
“When I assumed the position of Justice Secretary, over ten thousand cases - in fact estimates peg the number at close to fifteen thousand - have yet to be resolved,” Guevarra disclosed during a conference of the Prosecutors League of the Philippines (PLP) held in Manila.
“That such a huge backlog exists is worrisome,” he lamented.
With the decongestion project, the Secretary expressed optimism in being able “to resolve the huge number of untouched petitions for review that we inherited from the past.”
“That the appealed cases of those denied justice have for so long languished in our docket constitutes a travesty which I hope to address,” he stated.