Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno is hoping that the incoming administration of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte will be as supportive of judicial reform as that of outgoing President Benigno Aquino III.
Under the Aquino government, Sereno said the judiciary had received funds to build its infrastructure and obtained the right amount of multi-year obligated allotments for the judiciary’s enterprise information systems platform and the automation systems platform.
“I thank him (Mr. Aquino) for the case decongestion officers that he approved through his endorsements in the Congress…So we have been able to modernize many of our systems and I look forward to a Congress and a President who will be as supportive of judicial reform as this President and this Congress have been,” Sereno told reporters.
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Sereno said that with the reforms being undertaken in the judiciary, “people will see less and less delays of their cases, shorter timelines.”
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“The Justice Sector Coordinating Council (JSCC), which I head, has been coordinating with scientific treatment of evidence. Whether at the forensic level, the police are involved, at the prosecutorial level, where prosecutors are presenting them, and the judicial level, where the judge is hearing the evidence. We’re talking about storage, marking, the analysis; and this is very important, especially because of huge drugs problems and cybercrimes,” Sereno added.
“Our goal is to approximate something that is as good as the public can look forward to and these reforms need the support of every administration,” Sereno said.
Sereno said in a democracy and a stable country, it was important that the judiciary be allowed to do its job well./rga