Manila courts’ phones reconnected

MANILA, Philippines—The telephone lines of the Manila Regional Trial Courts were being reconnected Tuesday after they were disconnected for failure to settle their telephone bills.

The courts’ 56 phone lines were disconnected in February because their phone bills from March 2010 remained unpaid.

The Manila City Hall, which houses the Manila RTC and is in charge of settling bills for utilities, only learned of the notice of disconnection last month. The city’s General Services Office paid P900,000 last week to settle the unpaid bills.

In a previous interview, Manila GSO chief administrative officer Henry Galang said the Manila RTC and its Office of the Clerk of Court had failed to process the vouchers for their telephone bills with the city government. In turn, the City Hall was not able to settle the courts’ bills with Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company.

As of Monday afternoon, the GSO was still following-up Manila RTC’s reconnection with PLDT.

By Tuesday morning, the Manila RTC-OCC, which has at least five phone lines, had been reconnected to the service. Galang said his office was still checking if all the RTC branches’ telephones had been reconnected. There are 48 RTC branches in the City Hall.