Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 23:59:00 05/14/2008
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo called it “a historic moment in our constitutional democracy.” The proverbial jury may still be out on the history-shaping part, but the formation on Tuesday of the Judiciary, Executive and Legislative Advisory and Consultative Council, or JELAC, is certainly a first in our history. It is the first time that justices of the Supreme Court will work together on national policy with the highest officials of the political branches of government.
President Arroyo lauded “the agreement institutionalizing consultation, cooperation and coordination in pursuit of the rule of law and the advancement of our nation.” But Chief Justice Reynato Puno was right to strike a more circumspect note.
He told reporters he had initial reservations about the JELAC but these reservations had been addressed. “We look at the structure of the JELAC, we look at its ends and purposes, and it’s quite clear it shall operate within the context and constraints of the Constitution, meaning the doctrine of separation of powers and the doctrine of checks and balances,” Puno said after the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement.
The JELAC council has nine members. Three from the Executive: the President, the Vice President, and a Cabinet member. Four from the Legislative: the Senate President, the Speaker of the House, a senator and a congressman. And two from the judiciary: the Chief Justice and another justice of the Supreme Court. Patterned after the LEDAC, the Legislative-Executive Development and Advisory Council that the Fidel Ramos administration used to marked effect in the 1990s and which the Arroyo administration seems to have rediscovered only recently, JELAC is meant to fast-track the reform of our institutions of justice.
In President Arroyo’s expansive words, at the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement: “We envision JELAC to be the venue where representatives of the three branches can identify issues pertaining to the primacy of the rule of law and formulate and undertake solutions to strengthen due process and the institutions of justice, and implement our laws better for the betterment of every Filipino.”
This vision may strike many as deeply ironic. Not only its critics have taken the Arroyo administration to task for its controversial record in strengthening due process and the institutions of justice; to cite only the first example that comes to mind, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston, invited by the administration itself, reported some very troubling findings. Indeed, it was the tsunami of political killings and politically motivated disappearances that led to the unprecedented “national consultative summit” called by the Supreme Court last year, which in turn led to the suggestion that a regular meeting of the top officials of all three branches of government—in other words, a JELAC—be convened.
Now that it’s up and about, what must it do? We agree with Sen. Francis Pangilinan, the motive force behind the JELAC idea, in that emphasis must be laid on increasing the budget of the judiciary.
The third co-equal branch of government operates on a budget of P8.4 billion—a mere 0.8 percent of the government’s trillion-peso budget.
“So in principle we have agreed to work on an increase of 20 percent so that at least one percent of the entire national budget will go to the judiciary,” Pangilinan said. The senator’s math is a little shaky (he means increase the current budget of the judiciary by 25 percent; that will raise the amount to “at least one percent” of the total national budget), but he is on to something.
The judiciary needs to attract the best lawyers. While the overall pay for judges has increased considerably in the last few years, more can be done. Also, many judicial posts remain vacant; many among the rank and file of the judiciary need what human resource managers call career-pathing; many court personnel continue to want for greater protection; many courtrooms continue to project an air of official squalor. And so on and so forth.
Indeed, considering all the reforms that must be undertaken to strengthen the country’s courts—even against the encroachments of the ever more aggressive Executive—perhaps the first thing to do is to actually double the judiciary’s budget.
Copyright 2008 Philippine Daily Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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