A.M. No. RTJ-11-2275 - SPOUSES CESAR AND THELMA SUSTENTO, COMPLAINANTS, VS. JUDGE FRISCO T. LILAGAN.D E C I S I O N - Supreme Court E-Library

Ruling

Accordingly, any judge who delays the disposition of any case or matter beyond the prescribed period without the Court's express clearance is liable for gross inefficiency and must be administratively sanctioned. On January 26, 2009, the complainants brought in the RTC in Tacloban City their petition for certiorari to annul the order issued by MTCC Judge Pocpoc-Lamoste in Civil Case No. 2008-05-CV-08, and the case was assigned to the respondent judge. It was only on March 3, 2009 when he directed the private respondent to file the comment on the petition. The comment was filed on March 31, 2009, and the complainants submitted their rejoinder to the comment. Subsequently, after they requested the resolution of the petition for certiorari by motion dated September 8, 2009, he issued his order of September 15, 2009 dismissing the petition for certiorari . In due time, they filed their motion for reconsideration. The parties exchanged their written submissions on the issue until the respondent judge issued the order of December 10, 2009 deeming the motion for reconsideration submitted for resolution. But he did not resolve the motion for reconsideration even by the time they filed their administrative complaint against him on July 26, 2010 in the Office of the Court Administrator. [21] What is obvious is that the respondent judge took too much time in disposing of the petition for certiorari and the ensuing motion for reconsideration. The delays were plainly violative of the injunction to him to act expeditiously on the matters 90 days from their submission. The respondent judge sought to justify his delay by citing the voluminous caseload he had as the presiding judge. The justification does not persuade. Although we are not insensitive to the heavy caseloads of the trial judges, we have allowed reasonable extensions of the periods for the trial judges to resolve their cases. If the heavy caseload of any judge should preclude his disposition of cases within the reglementary period, he should notify the Court, through the Court Administrator, of the reasons or causes for the delay, and request in writing a reasonable extension of the time to dispose of the affected cases. No judge should arrogate unto himself the prerogative to extend the period for deciding cases beyond the mandatory 90-day period. The respondent judge insists that that he did not need to act on the resulting motion for reconsideration because the petition for certiorari , being a prohibited pleading, was a contravention of the rules of procedure. [22] Such insistence did not justify his inability to act promptly. The fact that the petition for certiorari was a prohibited pleading furnished him a better reason to act promptly on the petition for certiorari and the motion for reconsideration. We are also not swayed by his other excuses of not having then a legal researcher assigned to him; and of his branch clerk of court being recently appointed. The court's business did not stop be