The Public Attorney’s Office fears for a worst-case scenario to the entire Philippine justice system due to a delay in the disposition and congestion of cases in the lower courts, should a public defender and another PAO lawyer represent the accused and the complainant, respectively, in the same case.
At a media briefing in Quezon City, PAO Chief Persida Acosta “humbly and respectfully” reiterated the appeal of 2,500 public lawyers to the Supreme Court to review Section 22, Canon III of the New Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability due to conflict of interest.
“Apart from PAO lawyers, indigent clients may avail themselves of the free legal services of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines members and even of the private lawyers under Republic Act 9999,” she stressed.
Even Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, in September 2022, approved a Bureau of Internal Revenue regulation citing guidelines on the incentives a private lawyer providing free legal aid can get — a 10-percent tax rebate.
Lawyer-doctor Erwin Erfe, PAO forensics chief, said RA 9999 or the so-called Lapid Law has directed the Supreme Court to come up with the implementing rules and regulations since the law’s passage in 2020 under then-Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and the late Speaker Prospero Nograles during the Arroyo administration.
Erfe, however, lamented that the High Court has ignored crafting the law’s IRRs that should have enabled the BIR to implement the 10 percent tax reduction policy in the past 13 years.
“Many private lawyers, especially those small players, welcome the Lapid Law to help poor litigants but they are deprived of the tax rebate,” he told reporters.
Erfe raised concern that a worst-case scenario may happen since the newly SC-approved Code of Professional Responsibility and Accountability mandates that a PAO lawyer from the case’s jurisdiction and a PAO lawyer from another regional district must represent the accused or the complainant “in just one and the same case.”
“Can you imagine if a public lawyer from a region goes to another region to represent either the respondent or the plaintiff? That is what the Code is telling us. The concerned lawyer would be left with no option but to leave his or her assigned clients in the province,” he said.
“Cases would pile up, and that there would be backlogs. That is not good to our entire justice system,” Erfe added.
The PAO chief expressed willingness to help the Supreme Court craft RA 9999’s IRRs.
“We are very much ready to help the committee on rules of the Supreme Court. I had been a part of that in the past,” Acosta told Manila Standard.
