2 Senate bills to make Sandigan more effective

Senator Teofisto Guingona III. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Two senators from the ruling Liberal Party have filed bills designed to fast-track the resolution of corruption cases before the Sandiganbayan following a reported increase in new cases filed in the antigraft tribunal.

Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, chair of the Senate blue ribbon committee in the past Congress, cited a Supreme Court and World Bank study that showed each of the tribunal’s five divisions handling approximately 1,000 cases a year.

Guingona added that according to the high tribunal and World Bank study, each case before the Sandiganbayan takes an average of seven years for the court to dispose.

Guingona, who has yet to make known his committee chairmanship of choice in the 16th Congress, filed Senate Bill No. 472 seeking to increase the number of associate justices in the Sandiganbayan from 14 to 44.

Additional justices

“With the additional associate justices in the Sandiganbayan, the need to extract accountability in a timely and relevant manner will no longer suffer,” Guingona said.

SB 472 seeks to increase the antigraft courts’ number of three-magistrate divisions from five to 15. It proposes that seven divisions be placed in Manila while four each in the Visayas and in Mindanao.

“We cannot stress enough the importance of extracting accountability in a timely and relevant manner. However, our justice system is undermanned and overburdened,” Guingona said in a statement.

“We need additional associate justices in the Sandiganbayan for it to fulfill its mandate of implementing fair, equitable justice in a speedy manner,” he added.

Drilon bill

Sen. Franklin Drilon earlier filed SB 470 seeking to allow one justice in a division to hear a case and accept evidence instead of having three justices present to do the task as required by the Sandiganbayan charter.

Guingona’s SB 472 has the same provision on allowing one justice to hear a case assigned to a division.

Drilon said SB 470 was meant to ensure the quick resolution of the 2,600 cases now pending in the Sandiganbayan.

The bill proposes to amend section three of the Sandiganbayan law that strictly requires the presence of at least three justices before a case and evidence could be heard.

“The existing provision became inapplicable to the present times since the government has expanded and cases filed before them have multiplied over the years, and that provision only contributes to the increasing number of unresolved cases,” Drilon said in a statement.

Drilon added that litigation of graft cases filed at the Sandiganbayan usually takes five to eight years before they are promulgated.

“This delay is intolerable if the war against corruption is to be won,” Drilon said.