MANILA
For Filipinos who are not privy to going-ons inside the highest Court of the land, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice Renato Corona find itself wanting vis-a-vis the judicial leaderships in the recent past. The growing concern did not come so much on any political attack on the High Court, but her behavior in the dispensation of justice. It got embroiled in controversies of its own making; and where specific justices got involved, its action smacked of self-preservation even on the cost of twisting the commonsensical character of the law.
Problems in Handling of Money
Here is the full report from The Philippine Daily Inquirer, on 15 January 2012:
The Supreme Court under the watch of Chief Justice Renato Corona has been
weighed and found wanting.
The World Bank has uncovered questionable procurements and disbursements in
the high court in connection with the Judicial Reform Support Project (JRSP).
The project, partly funded by a World Bank loan of $21.9 million (P930.75
million at an exchange rate of P42.50 to $1), was designed to restore efficiency
in the dispensation of justice in the country.
In an aide memoire, the World Bank said that since Corona assumed his post in
mid-2010, progress in reforming the judiciary “has been rated unsatisfactory,”
with “implementation delays and additional work required for smooth project
closing.”
The document detailed the results of a fiduciary review conducted by a World
Bank task team on Oct. 24-Nov. 11, 2011, through discussions with justices of
the high court and field visits to courts all over the country.
“The review discloses that the fiduciary environment pertaining to JRSP
implementation has so deteriorated that the task team now rates the JRSP as a
‘high risk’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ on project management, project procurement and
financial management dimensions, and observes that project financial statements
can no longer be relied upon,” the World Bank said.
The review uncovered, among others, “inaccurate/incomplete information” on
the project’s financial management report, “diminished existing internal
check-and-balance mechanism,” purchase of information technology equipment
outside of the agreed procurement plan, and the practice of borrowing funds from
the loan for the justices’ foreign travels, paid to a travel agency owned by
lawyer Estelito Mendoza.
The World Bank is now demanding a refund of $199,900, covering “70 payments”
deemed “ineligible” or unauthorized under the terms of the JRSP, by Jan. 31.
Review trigger
The World Bank initiated the fiduciary review when Corona was already
appointed Chief Justice by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo despite an
election ban.
It said the review was “triggered by several withdrawal applications”
presented to the World Bank by the tribunal’s Program Management Office (PMO),
“which seemed to signal a sudden and significant increase in the disbursement in
the latter half of 2011.”
“The project result indicators depict achievements in several areas, but
significant missed opportunities due to capacity and coordination constraints
and delays in decision-making, procurement and contracting,” it said.
Included in the “ineligible” purchases were the printing supply of the Court
Reporter’s Case Index, purchase of laptop computers, speaker’s fee for seminars,
registration fee of justices attending international conferences, and foreign
travels of justices and their staff (including airfare, hotel accommodations and
meal allowances).
‘Black prop’
Asked to comment, Ramon Esguerra, a spokesperson of Corona’s legal team, on
Saturday said the accusation was “not in any way connected to any of the
articles of impeachment” against the Chief Justice.
He said it was the high court as a whole, and not Corona alone, that should
respond to the accusation.
“Two days before the opening of the trial and there’s this story?” Esguerra
told the Inquirer by phone. “The barrage of black propaganda has not ceased. In
fact, it’s now coming out with greater intensity.”
Esguerra said media reports on Corona’s alleged ill-gotten wealth, as well as
the latest on the supposed fund mismanagement at the high court, were all part
of “a pattern of harassment intended to demonize the Chief Justice in the eyes
of the public.”
“It’s very unfair,” he protested.
Corona himself said “it’s hard to answer that [accusation]” because he had
yet to read the World Bank aide memoire.
The Inquirer sought his comment after a Tridentine Mass held late Saturday
afternoon at the Supreme Court grounds, the last of novena Masses for the
embattled Chief Justice.
Corona attended the Mass with his wife and more than 100 sympathizers,
including former Philippine Commission on Good Government Chair Camilo
Sabio.
The Chief Justice also said he had yet to decide whether he would attend the
opening of his impeachment trial on Monday, contradicting Esguerra’s statement
that he would show up.
One-man show
According to the World Bank, the diminished internal auditing mechanism in
the high court was exemplified by Corona’s appointment of one man as court
administrator, head of the Public Information Office, and chair of the Bids and
Awards Committee.
The court administrator was authorized to approve, on Corona’s behalf,
payments of up to P200,000 which was later increased to P500,000, the World Bank
said.
“Lack of appropriate segregation of duties of key officials involved in the
JRSP has created a breakdown of the control environment, increased fiduciary and
reputation risks, and led to irregular/inappropriate procurement and expenditure
decisions,” it said.
Without naming Jose Midas Marquez, the World Bank said “this senior official,
due to the combination of his appointments and functions, was the requestor of
the services, the approver of the terms of reference, the end-user of the
services provided by the firm, the authorizer of contract extensions, and the
authorizer of payments to the firm.”
It said this arrangement, among others, “present[ed] a conflict of interest
and eliminate[d] internal checks and balances applicable to the procurement and
disbursement functions.”
4 project components
The World Bank approved the loan in 2003 (Loan No. 7191-PH) “to assist the
borrower in developing a more effective and accessible judiciary that would
foster public trust and confidence through the implementation of the Supreme
Court’s Action Program for Judicial Reform (APJR).”
The JRSP is the World Bank’s term for its financial support for the APJR, the
brainchild of then Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., who envisioned the
much-needed judicial reforms to be bankrolled by combined resources from the
national budget, the judiciary’s own funds and financing from development
partners.
The four project components involved improving case adjudication and access
to justice (i.e., mobile courts); enhancing institutional integrity (i.e., Code
of Ethics and related training of judges and judicial personnel); strengthening
the institutional capacity of the judiciary (i.e., e-Library); and support for
the reform of the judicial system and for the high court’s PMO.
The judicial reform covered six key areas: judicial system procedures,
institutional development, human resources development, integrity infrastructure
development, access to justice by the poor, and reform support systems.
The World Bank has participated in all six areas; six other development
partners have varying degrees of exposure to the APJR.
The loan was to expire on Dec. 31, 2009, during the incumbency of Chief
Justice Reynato Puno. But the World Bank extended the closing date twice—first
by 18 months (until June 30, 2011), and then by 12 months (until June 30,
2012).
But due to questions over the fiscal discipline of the tribunal in adhering
to loan stipulations, the World Bank canceled the final tranche of the loan
amounting to $0.5 million.
Thus far, the tribunal has spent $16.3 million (76 percent of the revised
loan amount of $21.4 million, after deducting the $0.5 million).
With reports from Christian V. Esguerra and Philip C.
Tubeza
First posted 12:08 am | Sunday, January 15th, 2012
INELIGIBLE EXPENSES
The ineligible expenses amounting to P8.9 million ($199,000) of the $21.9 million World Bank loan include the following expenses:
Goodwill Games (P9,080)
Conference Registrations (P63,857)
Hotel Accomodations (P104,327)
Restaurant Bills (P127,010)
Airfare (P212,339)
Conferences and Seminar Resource Person Fees (P227,906)
Reimbursed Travel Expenses (P564,450)
Printing Services (P965,620)
Computer Equipment (P8,602,504)
[Source: Annex 4 of the Judicial Reform Support Project (World Bank Memo)
DECISION ON DAY 44
Guilty: 20 votes
Not Guilty: 3 votes (Arroyo, Santiago and Marcos)
Sources
Amita Legaspi: "Lacierda: Supreme Court spent nearly P9M of WB loan on 'ineligible expenses',"
GMA News 18 January 2012 [
Read Report]
