Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo underscored the need for judges and justices to adapt themselves to modern technology that “plays a very significant role in the administration of justice.”
“Access to court services should not be limited to face-to-face access, especially that we have yet to see the end of the pandemic,” he stressed. “Our reputation, our prestige, and the people’s perception of our efficacy or lack thereof are anchored on the effective discharge of your sworn duties and obligations,” he added.
“Through this new law, the jurisdictional amounts of our trial courts have now been adjusted to levels which are more suitable to the current economic conditions and property valuation in the country,” he said. For the municipal and city courts known as first level courts, the new law provides that they will have “exclusive original jurisdiction over civil actions and probate proceedings, testate and intestate, including grant of provisional remedies where the value of the personal property, estate, or amount of the demand does not exceed P2,000,000, exclusive of interest, damages of whatever kind….”
At the same time, Gesmundo reiterated to the judges the SC’s five-year “strategic plan” to make the country’s courts “consistently efficient and accountable havens for the disadvantaged, the wronged, the injured.”
Court hearing via Zoom should be the norm rather than the exception.