The reforms instituted in the Department of Justice under the leadership of Secretary Menardo Guevarra have resulted to the resolution of more than 2,350 petitions for review in 2019, which is higher than compared the previous years.
Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete said that Secretary Guevarra’s “decongestion project” aimed at substantially reducing the backlog of petitions for review have resulted in speedy resolution of pending petitions.
Petitions for review are appeals seeking the Office of the Secretary for the reversal of resolutions by the National Prosecution Service.
Justice Assistant Secretary Neal Bainto said that for 2019, the DOJ has resolved 2,350 petition for reviews.
“For this year [2019] to date, the Department has resolved 2,350 petrev [petitions for review],” Bainto said.
Bainto pointed out that the number of petitions for review resolved in 2019 is way more than the 1,727 resolved in 2017 and the 556 resolved in 2018.
Perete, who concurrently serves as spokesperson of the DOJ, said the large number of petitions for review resolved in 2019 can be attributed to efforts made at the DOJ aimed at greatly reducing the backlog of pending petitions for review.
Perete recalled that back in 2016, the backlog reached to “around 13,000 to 14,000 unresolved petitions for review.”
“Those are appealed cases which were inherited from the previous administrations,” Perete said, noting that some of the oldest pending petitions for review were filed way back in 2005.
As part of efforts to slash the backlog, the DOJ implemented back in August the “decongestion project.”
“The decongestion project takes care of the cases filed before 2016,” Perete explained.
Under the decongestion project, Perete said teams of prosecutors were created and led by undersecretaries and assistant secretaries to help the Justice Secretary handle the unresolved petitions for review.
According to Perete, some 300 cases of the 2,350 resolved petitions for review “came from the decongestion project.”
“The decongestion project is being implemented while the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, and the pool of prosecutors resolve the new petitions,” Perete said.