Manila, Philippines— The judicial branch of the government may lose highly qualified judges and justices to the private sector with the approval of only less than one percent of the P1.645 trillion proposed budget going to the judiciary for 2011, the Supreme Court (SC) warned.

Lawyer Jose Midas Marquez, SC administrator and spokesperson, expressed fear that many of the 2,308 justices and judges serving nationwide have been considering taking higher-paying professions in other government institutions and corporations.

“Our judges have been suffering from a very low pay. If we do away with increasing their salaries and allowances, we might lose them to other government institutions, especially the private sector,” Marquez told the House panel hearing the national budget.

Marquez asked the House Committee on Appropriations to increase the P14.308-billion budget allotted for the entire judiciary in the national budget for 2011 so that it could cover the P900-million unpaid debts to judges and justices.

The unpaid salary increase of judges and justices is the 20 percent additional compensation from the Special Allowances that was granted by Republic Act No. 9227 in 2007 and 2008.

Half of the government's unpaid debts also include 30 percent salary increase granted to judges in a Joint Resolution No. 104 in 2009 as well as the P10,000 increase authorized in Executive Order No. 900 in June, 2010.

Marquez noted that judges should now be double their salaries had the government funded the increases since 2007.

A regular judge at the Municipal Trial Court receives P25,000 to P27,000 monthly while presiding judges in Regional Trial Courts still get P30,000 per month, according to the SC administrator.

These figures are relatively lower than the compensation of P40,000 salaries of justices in higher courts like the SC, Court of Appeals, Court of Tax Appeals, and the Sandiganbayan, Marquez noted.

The government will only compound its problem of having only one judge for every 50,000 Filipinos under its jurisdiction should the government continue to deny law experts the salary increases authorized by laws and executive orders since 2007, he emphasized.

Marquez explained that 15 justices in SC, 69 justices in the Court of Appeals, nine justices in the Court of Tax Appeals, 15 justices in the Sandiganbayan, and 2,204 judges in lower courts are still not enough to fulfill the ideal ratio of one judge for every 10,000 inhabitants.