Judges forge deal with DBM over budget woes

Over 800 judges nationwide convened on Thursday at the Century Park Hotel in Manila to make a consensus on a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on the salary differentials government owes the magistrates since 2003, when a law granted them special allowances to augment their salaries. Representatives of the Philippine Judges Association (PJA), Metropolitan and City Judges Association of the Philippines (MCJAP), and Philippine Trial Judges League, Inc. (PTJLI) began gathering in Manila on Tuesday to thresh out the MOA with the DBM. The DBM, for its part, sent Director IV Tina Rose Marie L. Canda, who handles the judiciary's budget matters, to attend the judges’ gathering. The DBM drafts the budget call which the executive branch submits to Congress. The legislative branch then works on this draft to create the National Budget for all branches of government. "The judges are requiring that the Special Allowances for Judges (SAJ) be given over and above what is provided under their basic salary. But the SAJ law, Republic Act No. 9227, states that it is advance implementation. There has been a pronouncement from the Supreme Court that it should not be the case, that it should not be advance implementation. And that's the bone of contention," Canda told reporters. She added that the DBM would have to find more than P100 million every year to address the judges’ concern. "But where are we going to get the funds?" asked Canda. For his part, PJA president RTC Judge Antonio Eugenio of the Manila Regional Trial Court 24 said the judges insist that their allowances should be separate from their basic salaries. "We've always impressed upon the DBM that the matter of salary and allowances differential. The SAJ is retroactive to July 2007 and is non-negotiable. We can't abandon and we can't waive the judges' right to salary differentials," said Eugenio. Draft memorandum of agreement By late Friday afternoon, the judges had voted on the adoption the MOA crafted by their negotiating team with the Budget department but details of the final agreement were yet unavailable as of posting time. A draft of the compromise agreement furnished to media shows that the points deliberated on were the 100-percent restoration of the SAJ and the payment of salary adjustment under the Salary Standardization Law. “The SAJ shall continue to be separate and distinct from the basic salary under the Salary Standardization Law. Payment of the SAJ should be shouldered by the Supreme Court sourced from the funding sources of Section 3 of the SAJ Law," read a portion of the draft deal. The judges' meeting with the DBM came a day after Malacañang issued a statement regarding the budget of the judiciary. “We have taken every opportunity to do our part, but the resources of the judiciary also involve the funds given the Supreme Court from legal funds and which it administers," said a statement read on Thursday by presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda. “A shared commitment to transparency in budgetary matters is in turn the foundation of a cooperative, constructive resolution of the judiciary’s concerns," Lacierda added. Budget woes Since President Benigno Aquino III assumed leadership last year, the executive and the judiciary have been at odds when it comes to the latter's budget. This despite the Chief Executive’s mention of the judiciary's low budget in his State of the Nation Address. In the last quarter of 2010, the Supreme Court had to quell fears of a mass leave in the judiciary, considering that the government still owed judges and justices P900 million in unpaid benefits. Instead of leaving their courtrooms, judges staged an “armband protest" after Congress drastically slashed the judiciary’s budget up to the point that there was zero capital outlay for new courtrooms. Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez, who supervises the courts nationwide, has led the clamor for a bigger budget for the judiciary. He has argued that the judiciary, a third co-equal branch in the Philippine government, has received less than 1 percent of the country's budget in the past years. “In 2007, the judiciary got only 0.76 percent of the national budget; in 2008, 0.88 percent; in 2009, 0.94 percent; and in 2010, 0.87 percent. For 2011, the judiciary will stand to receive a measly 0.78 percent of the national budget," said Marquez. He said a bigger budget would address the need to repair dilapidated court rooms, unpaid allowances amounting to P900 million, and other lack of resources that hamper the swift delivery of justice. Marquez — who supervises 2,200 judges and justices, and about 25,500 court personnel — also said there are about 600,000 pending cases nationwide, 6,000 of which are sitting at the SC. RA 9227: Special Allowances for Judges law The SAJ was created in 2003 by RA 9227, which granted justices, judges, and other judiciary officials of similar rank special allowances equivalent to 100 percent of the individual basic monthly salaries under the Salary Standardization Law. Its implementation was spread uniformly over the span of four years (2003-2007) in amounts equivalent to 25 percent of the basic salaries covered for each installment. The SAJ Fund is sourced from increases in current fees and new fees imposed by the Supreme Court after the effectivity of RA 9227.– MRT/JV, GMA News