The testimony of Court Administrator Midas Marquez before the Committee on Justice virtually confirmed the allegations that Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno was responsible for the long delays in the release of benefits due to surviving spouse of deceased judges and justices.
In his impeachment complaint against Sereno, lawyer Lorenzo Gadon charged that she committed culpable violation of the constitution by delaying actions on petitions for the release of such benefits.
Testifying before the Justice Committee, Marquez said that before the creation of the Special Committee on Civil Service and Retirement Benefits and two related TWGs, the high court normally issues its decision on petitions for such benefits in two to three weeks’ time.
‘After the committee was created and the TWG was organized umaabot ng halos dalawang taon bago maaksyunan ang kanilang application,” Marquez told the committee. The committee was created via Memorandum Order 43-2015.
In his Power Point presentation, Marquez noted that as a result of the creation of the committee and the TWGs no application for such benefits were acted upon from October 2015 to November 6, 2017.
The order creating the committee was signed not only by Sereno but by Associate Justices Antonio Carpio and Presbitero Velasco. However, Marquez said, Sereno created two additional TWGs to handle the processing of the petitions for survivorship benefits.
Marquez clarified that he is appearing before the committee not to testify for or against anyone but simply “to tell the truth.”
Before the creation of the committee and the TWGs, Marquez said the applications for such benefits were coursed through the OCA, which evaluates compliance with documentary requirements and then forwards it to the court en banc for its decision.
Previous to this, Marquez said that the court had approved 271 petitions for benefits of surviving spouses of judges and justices.
However, Marquez said that on November 2, 2016 he found out that there were many pending applications for such benefits after a distant relative sought his help to follow up a claim of a surviving spouse of a deceased member of the bench.
After inquiry, Marquez said he documented 29 claims for such benefits pending before the TWGs. He said he brought it to the attention of Sereno in a letter dated January 12, 2017 but he did not receive any reply.
Marquez said he looked into the circumstances surrounding the delays in the survivorship benefits because he believes that the petitioners should “get what is due them within a reasonable period of time.”
To illustrate the problem, Marquez noted that some claims remained pending for as long as two years and 30 days, from the time it was referred to the SC en bank until Nov. 6, 2017. The claimant in this case is already 85 years old.
Most of the petitioners in the cases that were stuck in the committee and TWGs are over 80, with the oldest at 94 years old.
But Marquez said that two weeks after Atty. Lorenzo Gadon held a press conference on July 29, 2017 regarding his impeachment complaint against Sereno that included the delay in the release of the benefits, the SC scheduled the deliberation on the pending cases and the first hearing was held on August 8, 2017.
On September 19, 2017, the court issued its promulgation approving 12 petitions for survivorship benefits.
Meanwhile, Atty. Gadon refuted the claim of SC spokesperson Theodore Te that the delayed benefits can be given to the surviving family members of the deceased member of the bench.
“The law clearly intended the benefits for the surviving spouse. It is not intended as an inheritance,” Gadon said.
According to Marquez, the surviving spouse of a deceased magistrate stands to get the same amount of retirement benefits the retired judge or justice was receiving when the latter was still alive.
In connection with this, Marquez requested for security reasons that the committee to keep confidential the names of the surviving spouse of deceased judges who have already received their claims for such benefit. (CONGRESS-PR)
