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State-of-the-art Judicial Complex will soon rise in Bulacan – SC
State-of-the-art Judicial Complex will soon rise in Bulacan – SC
The Supreme Court (SC) now has a 25-hectare land in Bulacan where a state-of-the-art Judicial Complex will be constructed starting in 2025 or early 2026.
SC Associate Justice Jose Midas P. Marquez said the complex will house not only the SC but also the Court of Appeals, the Sandiganbayan, and the Court of Tax Appeals.
The land, located in Barangay (village) Bambang in Bulakan town, is part of the concession agreement between the government, through the Department of Transportation (DoTr), and San Miguel Aerocity, Inc. (SMAI).
Under the agreement, SMAI – a wholly-owned subsidiary of San Miguel Holdings Corporation, the infrastructure arm of San Miguel Corporation – will donate 100 hectares to the government for the Government Center in Bulacan.
In September 2019, SMAI signed an agreement with the government for the development, construction, operation, and maintenance of the New Manila International Airport (NMIA).
Later in 2020, Republic Act No. 11506 lapsed into law which granted a legislative franchise to SMAI “to construct, develop, establish, operate and maintain a domestic and international airport in the municipality of Bulakan, province of Bulacan and to construct, develop, establish, operate and maintain an adjacent Airport City.”
The memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the SC and DoTr-SMAI for the 25-hectare property was signed last September. Under the MOA, the DoTr will transfer the property to the SC.
Bulakan town is near the towns of Obando and Guiguinto, and Malolos City.
Justice Marquez said the initial plan to construct the new SC complex at McKinley Hill in Taguig City was put on hold in favor of the much bigger donated property in Bulacan.
At the same time, Marquez said that construction of the long-awaited Manila City Hall of Justice will hopefully start in the first quarter of 2025.
He said the hall of justice will house more than 80 regional trial courts and up to 30 metropolitan trial courts which are currently spread out in three locations -- in the Manila City Hall, the old Ombudsman building, and the former Masagana Complex along Kalaw Street.
The plan to construct a hall of justice in Manila started in 1982. It was supposed to be built on a 6,470-square-meter lot where the old Jai-alai building was located on Taft Avenue.
Then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo issued a proclamation that transferred the lot of the old Government Service Insurance System building on Arroceros Street to the SC.