Velasco accepts Sereno offer to head SC project

MANILA, Philippines - Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno has designated a senior magistrate as head of a P3-billion priority project of the Supreme Court (SC).

Sereno has offered Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. the chairmanship of the SC committee that will handle the construction of a new Manila Hall of Justice, an insider told The STAR yesterday.

The Chief Justice earlier offered Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio the chairmanship of the high court’s computerization program, but the latter begged off.

After Carpio rejected the position, the SC chief then offered to Velasco the position that was earlier assigned to Associate Justice Jose Perez, who was even more senior to her in terms of date of appointment to the high court.

“She (Sereno) probably realized she offended Perez, that’s why in a recent lunch in Manila Hotel, she asked him (Perez) to join her in the ride going back to SC and told him he would be the co-chair of the committee,” the source bared.

Sereno bypassed Carpio, Velasco and nine other senior justices when she was appointed chief justice. She was President Aquino’s first appointee to the SC as associate justice in 2010.

In July, a month before Sereno’s appointment as chief justice, the SC approved the release of P1.865 billion from the judiciary’s existing savings to fund the project.

The proposed Manila Hall of Justice – envisioned to symbolize the modern, state-of-the-art face of the country’s judiciary – will house 120 courtrooms and have LCD screens outside each courtroom to allow lawyers, litigants and the public to view court activities and announcements.

It will be environment-friendly with paperless conference rooms also equipped for video-conferencing, as well as closed-circuit television cameras, intercom and Internet wireless hotspots installed in strategic areas.

The high-tech hall of justice will also boast of a centralized filing and docketing system to vastly improve the administration of justice.

The project was meant to address the poor condition of rooms of the Manila regional trial court currently housed at the Manila City Hall and at the antiquated condemned structure of the Government Service Insurance System in Arroceros.

The project is worth about P3 billion.

The SC is reportedly funding more than half of the budget while the rest of the amount would be sourced from the private sector or the SC’s allied foreign institutions.