Manila Times
Malacanang yesterday said it did not reject the judiciary’s request for funding for its e-court programme as chief justice Lourdes Sereno claims because no such request was made.
Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said Sereno could have made an erroneous claim when she said on Thursday that the executive turned down the judiciary’s request for more funds.
“The chief justice mentioned about their budget for e-courts which was not granted [by the Executive]. But records would show that there was no funding request for such in their 2014 and 2015 proposals,” Valte said during the weekly briefing on Radyo ng Bayan.
“What they had requested was a budget for the implementation of information technology projects which include digitisation of their system, thus shortening the process of litigation. They have been given P774mn for that five-year programme. We supported them,” she said.
Valte was reacting to the statement of Sereno that they can beef up the existing 61 e-courts if the executive department had granted their request for a bigger budget.Under the proposed P2.606tn national budget for 2015, the judiciary was allocated P20bn.
