In the link above, the Supreme Court spokesman made the following points:
1. One of four lower courts across the country has remained without a permanent judge since last year as a result of the scant budget that the judiciary has been receiving from the national government.
2. The unattractive financial packages for judges in the first and second level courts had discouraged “brilliant” lawyers from joining the judiciary.3. While there were enough applicants for the vacancies, he said most of them lacked “qualifications” since they had flunked the bar examinations at least thrice.
4. At present, judges handling at least 300 cases in metropolitan trial courts, municipal trial courts and municipal circuit trial courts receive a monthly salary of “only” P60,000 plus P20,000 in allowances.5. On the other hand, judges of regional trial courts get P70,000 a month on top of P25,000 in allowances.
