Friday, December 12, 2008

Angara and the prosecutors

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Angara and the prosecutors
Sunday, 05 02, 2007

Prosecutors discharge a vital and critical role in our criminal justice system. They share the heavy task of maintaining and upholding the rule of law. In their daily life, they carry the uncommon burden of prosecuting offenders, as they prove their case through the entire judicial mill. Such way of life exacts complete devotion and dedication from our prosecutors. It is a sad commentary, however, that existing legislations all fall short in the appreciation of their work.

It is difficult for our prosecutors to be effective partners in the fight for justice, when they themselves are laboring under oppressive conditions. For although it is their duty to preserve the laws, it is an irony that these laws seem oblivious to their own plight and needs.

For many years now, the salaries of our prosecutors have not been competitive with those of lawyers in private practice and in other government offices, and for this reason, it has become increasingly difficult to attract the best and the brightest. Many of those who become prosecutors do not stay long, because they are eventually lured into higher paying jobs elsewhere.

Our prosecutors presently earn less than trial court judges. This is aggravated by the imbalance between the number of regional and other trial courts in the country, resulting in heavy workload. In short, our prosecutors are overworked and underpaid. This situation has produced a migratory effect. After spending a few years in the prosecution service, our prosecutors resign and join the ranks in the judiciary.

Couple all these with the constant threat on our prosecutors of being cited for criminal indictment by sourgraping private litigants, and you have a corps of prosecutors who would rather leave the service than be martyrs for a measly compensation. The sad fate of prosecutors who are victims of shysters is a case in point. Our prosecutors resolve cases clearly and only on the merits, but the losing private litigants and their counsel hale them nonetheless to the Office of the Ombudsman for no reason other than the litigants’ losing the cases they faced.

There is, therefore, an urgent need to address this inequity, if only to stem the tide of demoralization that is creeping within the ranks of the prosecutors.

After taking up the cudgels for our judges and justices with the passage of Senate Bill 2018 during the 12th Congress, which doubles their take home pay on top of a grant of authority to the Supreme Court to extend additional allowances and other benefits out of savings and the Judiciary Development Fund, Sen. Edgardo Angara set his sights on the plight of our public prosecutors.

Senator Angara, responding to the plea of the Prosecutors’ League of the Philippines, filed in the 13th Congress Senate Bill 2186, the same bill which he filed in the 12th Congress. Unfortunately, this Angara initiative was not given that much importance by his colleagues in the Senate.

Angara is set to file the same bill in the 14th Congress, and has vowed to vigorously pursue its immediate enactment into law.

The compensation package that Angara previously crafted for our judges and justices is proposed to be similarly adopted for our prosecutors, that is, their basic salaries shall also be doubled, and the secretary of Justice will be granted authority to utilize the savings and the income they generate as allowances for the prosecutors.

Under Angara’s proposed bill, a prosecutor such as Agripino Baybay of Muntinlupa City currently receiving a basic monthly salary of P22,521 (Step 1 of Salary Grade 26) will be receiving P45,042, with a Step 8 rate of P57,910; while the highest ranked prosecutor, such as Chief City Prosecutor Jhosep Lopez of Manila, whose current entry level rate is P28,375 (Step 1, Salary Grade 30) per month, shall be receiving P57,750, with a Step 8 rate of P68,646.

Angara also filed Senate Bill 2542, which seeks to establish a generous retirement package to the prosecutors, extending to them the benefits of Republic Act 910 which heretofore applies only to the members of the judiciary. Angara, the “Father of the Ombudsman Law,” having been the principal author and sponsor of the bill creating the Office of the Ombudsman during the Eighth Congress, realizes there is an urgent need to provide a solid and competitive retirement package commensurate to the demands and pressure exerted on our prosecutors.

Under Angara’s retirement bill, when a prosecutor has attained the age of 60 years and has rendered at least 20 years in the government, the last five years of which must have been continuously rendered in the prosecution service, he shall be entitled to retire and receive during his lifetime a retirement pension based on the highest monthly salary, plus the highest monthly aggregate of transportation, living and representation allowances which he was receiving at the time of his retirement or resignation. Those less than 20 years in the government shall be entitled to a pro-rata monthly pension.

The expected increase in the salaries of our prosecutors, and their expectation of a generous retirement package, which would place our prosecutors at par with those in the judiciary, will hopefully deter the practice of migration as there would then be a continuous supply of competent and dedicated prosecutors servicing our court system.

What Angara seeks to achieve with these legislative initiatives is to stem the migration of prosecutors to the judiciary, to other government offices, or to private practice. Our prosecutors must be attended to, and Angara, who knows their plight, having been himself a law practitioner for many years, has started to do just that.

After all, justice is about giving one’s fair share, and it is time that we give our prosecutors what is due them. And Angara back in the Senate will do just that for our prosecutors.


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