Senator-elect Rafael “Raffy” Tulfo on Sunday vowed to increase the budget of the judiciary when the Senate starts deliberation on the proposed 2023 national budget in the coming months.
Tulfo said his “personal working goal is to push for an increase of at least P6.25-billion so that the first-level courts, second-level courts, and Supreme Court will have P46-billion in 2023 because they are the courts most in need of added resources.”
The broadcast journalist-turned politician noted that for 2022, the Supreme Court and the Lower Courts have a budget of P39.7-billion, but this does not yet include the allocations for the Court of Appeals, Court of Tax Appeals, the Sandiganbayan, and the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
He recalled that during the budget formulation process in 2021 prior to the budget submission to Congress, the Supreme Court actually proposed P67.28-billion yet the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) slashed this down to P44.98-billion. Nevertheless, Congress increased the figure to P45.31-billion.
“My current thinking on this matter is this: When the Judiciary, co-equal branch of government, asks for P67.28-billion, the DBM should give the Judiciary the benefit of the doubt, cast aside its budget ceiling formula, and then sit down with the Judiciary and Congress to work on a middle ground,” Tulfo said.
“Slashing the original budget request by P22.3 billion does not only seem disrespectful, but there is inevitable denial of public service to Filipino citizens which is the greater injustice,” he explained.
Tulfo said it is imperative to provide more funding for first-level courts and second-level courts, also known as the municipal trial courts, municipal circuit trial courts, and metropolitan trial courts, because this is where most of the pending cases are.
“In the 2020 annual report of the Supreme Court, the RTCs had 635,690 total cases and 215,413 of them were disposed of, for a disposition rate of 34 percent. In the first-level courts, there were 171,382 pending cases, 208,867 case inflow, and 191,597 in decided and archived cases,” he pointed out.
“For the appellate courts and PET, a ballpark figure of P9-billion I think would be fair considering the high importance of their pending cases and to help expedite the disposition of those cases because justice delayed is justice denied,” he said.
Tulfo said he hopes to colleagues in the upcoming 19th Congress to approve of his plans for the judiciary in order to give the SC at least P55-billion in 2023, an amount much closer to what they proposed in their original budget for 2022.
“For the capital outlay needs for the long-term, I will ask the Department of Finance (DOF) to study the issuance of at least P100-billion in bonds so that the Judiciary will have an additional P20-billion per year in five years for systemic infrastructure,” Tulfo said.
He also said he would ask the SC to also submit to Congress a multi-year plan that includes a request for an authorization for continuing capital outlay for infrastructure, digitalization, computerization and manpower upgrading.
Likewise, Tulfo said he would ask the judiciary “to set ambitious but doable targets on disposition of cases, reduction of caseload by at least 30 to 40 percent, creation of many more new regional trial courts and first-level courts, filling up of vacant plantilla positions, and the release from detention of tens of thousands of detainees waiting for final decision on their pending cases.
“I am open to pushing for a bill that will grant to the Supreme Court the authority delegated from Congress to create new courts subject to guidelines and parameters set by Congress,” Tulfo said.
“I will also ask the Supreme Court to send to Congress their ideas on how much the salaries and benefits of their personnel should be,” he also said.