Let judge waive city stipend, says justice; City Hall lawyer disagrees

Associate Justice Gabriel Ingles of the Court of Appeals in Cebu suggested that  the judge who backed off from handling the Rallos land dispute should waive his allowance from City Hall if he felt it was affecting his duties.

Ingles said that it was important that  judicial independence exists  in “fact and in public perception.”

This advice for Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge James Himalaloan  was given by the only magistrate in the courts of Cebu City, who has refused to receive a  monthly stipend from any local government unit.

Ingles gave his views  after Himalaloan decided on Friday to inhibit himself from handling the case filed by the heirs of Rev. Fr. Vicente Rallos against the Cebu city government.

Himalaloan, in a one-page order,  said his exercise of judicial discretion may be questioned because of allowances received by judges from the Cebu city government.

RTC judges receive P30,000 a month as assistance  from the city  and a separate amount from the Cebu provincial government.

“The primary duty of a judge is to resolve cases, not to inhibit. If there is a conflict in receiving allowances (from LGUs), performance of judicial duty should not be sacrificed,” Ingles told Cebu Daily News.

“The proper decision is to waive the allowance and perform judicial duty rather than to perform judicial duty and continue receiving the allowance,” said Ingles, who waived his monthly allowance amounting to about P60,000 from various LGUs three years ago.

But a Cebu city government legal adviser said the grant of  monthly allowance to judges  wasn’t an issue.

“Allowances to judges were never an issue to begin with and never shall be. In fact, the question should not be whether or not to give allowances to the judges. The question is why are we not doing more for our courts and our justice system?,” said  Jade Ponce, Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama’s legal consultant. (See Ponce’s full statemnt in OPINION, page 12).

Ponce said the  allowance  wasn’t meant to influence judges to favor the city in court disputes.

He  cited  several court losses of Cebu City  in the long-running court battle with the Rallos heirs as proof. He said the  city had posted a remarkable record of consistent losses during the administration  of then mayor Tomas Osmeña.

Ponce said the allowance was intended to help judges perform their duties.

He said that  if only court archives had been computerized, the city government would have discovered sooner the “conenio”  or record of a family compromise  agreement in the Rallos case that would prevent the payment of millions of pesos to the Rallos heirs as compensation for a private  lot used as a road in 1963.

About P56.1 million in government funds was already paid by the city to the Ralloses in 2001.The court recently ordered the city to pay another P133 million after the decision became final and executory.

The city refused to pay the Ralloses after finding the “convenio”, an old document approved by the court in the 1940s  that showed the family ought to donate a part of the family’s property to the Cebu City government for road purposes.