Lack of prosecutors affect filing of cases in Courts
The Iloilo City Prosecution Office (ICPO) continues to suffer from lack of prosecutors thereby causing delay in the filing of cases before the courts.
Chief City Prosecutor Efrain Baldago said the current ratio of a prosecutor to a court is 1:5. He said an ideal ratio should have been one prosecutor for every two courts.
ICPO currently has ten prosecutors which includes one reviewing fiscal, a city prosecutor and eight prosecutors.
Baldago said some prosecutors get sick because of the bulk of the trials and inquest investigations they attend to everyday.
Baldago lamented that they have been suffering from lack of prosecutors in the past five years.
The ICPO receives at least 67 cases in a week. For the entire year, it attends to more than 1,000 cases.
Baldago said the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP)-Iloilo Chapter already filed two resolutions requesting President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to act on pending appointments of prosecutors for Iloilo City.
The first request was sent in 2006. In the middle of 2007, the IBP sent another request to the President but the latter has not yet responded.
Baldago said as a matter of procedure, all interested parties apply at the ICPO. The application will then be endorsed to the Office of the President. The President shall then sign the appointment of the applicant as a prosecutor.
There are applicants who withdrew their application because it was not acted for quite a long time.