MANILA, Philippines — The Senate on Monday approved on third and final reading a bill that aims to unclog dockets of second-level courts or regional trial courts (RTCs) and to speed up the disposition of cases.
Voting 21-2, the chamber approved Senate Bill No. 1886 or the proposed Judiciary Reorganization Act. Senators Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III and Francis Tolentino opposed the passage of the measure, citing the “unconstitutionality” of one of the measure’s provisions.
The proposed legislation targets to address choked RTC dockets by expanding the jurisdictional threshold of first level courts or the municipal trial courts (MTCs).
One of the amendments included in the bill is the increase in the jurisdictional amount under the RTCs in all civil actions involving the title to, or possession of, real property from P20,000 (P50,000 in Metro Manila) to P400,000.
The RTCs shall also have jurisdictional supervision “in all matters of probate, both testate and intestate, where the gross value of the estate exceeds P2 million” from P100,000 to P200,000, the bill likewise states.
Data from the Office of the Court Administrator of the Supreme Court (SC) showed there are 21,269 pending civil cases at the first level courts while there are 108,484 pending civil cases at the second level courts as of December 2018.
The bill also delegates to the SC the power to further increase or decrease the jurisdictional threshold of the first and second level courts in line with the high court’s power of administrative supervision over all courts.
It was an amendment proposed by Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, and adopted by the Senate during last week’s plenary deliberations.
Drilon said the adjustment of the jurisdictional amounts for the first and second level courts is necessary “to reflect extraordinary supervening events, or deflation of the currency, or change in the land valuation, or to maintain the proportion of the caseload between the first and second level courts.”
But Pimentel and Tolentino argued that Congress cannot delegate its legislative powers to another branch of government.
“I have two reasons for my objection. First it cannot be done, second, it should not be done. There is this principle in constitutional law that the legislative power cannot be delegated,” Pimentel said.
“Congress alone can make laws and congress may not delegate its lawmaking powers. So our grant of delegated authority to the Supreme Court under Section 3 of the bill is, unfortunately, therefore, unconstitutional,” he added.
Pimentel further noted that even if the granting of legislative powers to the SC can be “constitutionally done,” it should still not be done.
“A power given to the legislature under the Constitution should not be delegated or transferred to another great branch of the government such as the judiciary because such a transfer would upset the balance of powers designed by the framers of the Constitution as ratified by the people,” he said.
“The division of power in our Constitution follows a great design which we should not upset,” he added.
Tolentino shared Pimentel’s view, saying the Constitution is “very clear” regarding the matter.
“I voted no not because I’m against the bill…The Constitution is very clear, I have searched during the weekend the 18 articles of the Philippine Constitution. Nowhere in the text in the four corners of that 50-page document did I find a provision that would allow Congress to surrender and delegate a portion of its allocated powers to the Supreme Court,” Tolentino said.
But Drilon and bill sponsor Senator Richard Gordon said nothing in the 1987 Constitution prevents the delegation of the power of Congress.