Senate President Pro Tempore Ping Lacson on Wednesday cautioned that underfunding the judiciary’s newly reorganized anti-corruption unit — the Judicial Integrity Office (JIO) — would only allow corruption to persist.
During deliberations on the judiciary’s 2026 budget, Lacson underscored the importance of supporting the JIO, a revamped Supreme Court office mandated to investigate misconduct within the courts.
“I’m interested in this. (This is part of the) signs of the times (because) as the nomenclature suggests, JIO will be primarily tasked to promote integrity and to address issues of corruption within the judiciary,” he said.
He argued that Congress must back rising public demand for accountability with actual funding.
“While the consciousness is high in addressing corruption, maybe this is the proper time to assist the Supreme Court and the Judiciary to organize immediately the JIO,” he added.
Lacson proposed an initial ₱250 million for the JIO, saying the amount was negligible compared to the billions allegedly lost to corruption — including the ₱100-billion anomaly he recently flagged in the 2025 budget, with supposed kickbacks involving resigned PLLO Undersecretary Adrian Carlos Bersamin and DepEd Undersecretary Trygve Olaivar.
“During the period of amendments we can introduce an amendment in the amount of ₱250 million, considering we were talking about hundreds of billions just yesterday,” he said.
He also expressed hope that the newly enacted Judicial Autonomy Act (RA 12233) will allow the judiciary to craft and submit its own budget by 2027.
Lacson questioned the steep cut to the judiciary’s proposal, noting it requested ₱90.7 billion for 2026 but only ₱67.66 billion was approved under the NEP.
“I’m wondering, they asked for ₱90 billion, tapos bibigyan ng ₱67 billion at sinasabi kulang. But as we know ang ibang executive department (agencies), parang wallowing in allocations,” he said.