SC ADMINISTRATOR ADMITS

THE late Regional Trial Judge Oscar Uson of Branch 52 of Tayug was one of the seven magistrates of the law killed by assassins and whose gruesome murders have yet to be solved by law enforcement agencies.

This was confirmed on Thursday by Supreme Court Administrator Christopher Lock in a talk to newsmen shortly after addressing the launching of a free legal assistance program for detainees in various jails of Pangasinan sponsored by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines chapter.

Lock attributed the failure to the lack of material witnesses to come out in the open and testify obviously for their fear of reprisal from the perpetrators.

“Even with the Witness Protection Program of the Department of Justice, our law enforcement agencies have not come close to solving these killings,” Lock lamented.

For its part, he said, the Supreme Court adopted measures to help the judges including the creation of a judiciary security committee where the process servers or the sheriffs were allowed to accompany the judges.

But the measure entailed costs as the court employees were allowed to receive P100 for only a few hours that they are with the judge on weekdays, he said.

Lock believes that basically the job of giving security to judges is a function of the security department, particularly the law enforcement agencies, and not the Supreme Court.

To help judges secure their permits to carry firearms outside of their residence, the Supreme Court signed a memorandum of agreement with the Philippine National Police so that judges securing the same would pay a minimal fee of P150.

Although he believes that it is the function of the security agencies to provide security to judges, Lock is worried that if the PNP will provide security to all 1,500 judges nationwide, it may run out of men for other peace-keeping work.

Another step undertaken by the SC, he said, was to provide security training to judges but this entailed bigger expenses because for the initial 40 judges who undertook the course, some P60,000 was already spent.

Lock said the Supreme Court’s annual budget is not even one per cent of the entire national budget, yet, it is the third branch of the government.

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