‘IT consultant’s fees higher than SC justices’ pay’

The P250,000 monthly fee Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno gave the Information Technology consultant of the entire judiciary was way above the pay grade of all 15 justices of the Supreme Court, a female magistrate told lawmakers yesterday.

“We were surprised to hear that the IT consultant was getting that much, which is higher than what the basic pay SC justices are receiving,” Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro told members of the House of Representatives committee on justice.

In her testimony, the former magistrate of the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan revealed that she was the SC justice in-charge of the judiciary’s computerization, and that she never knew nor heard of Helen Macasaet as their IT consultant.

“I’m the justice in charge of computerization but I never heard or knew that she was hired. There was one time where she made a presentation, but that was it,” De Castro told the committee headed by Oriental Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali.

And contrary to Sereno’s claims, the purported hiring of Macasaet was not sanctioned by the 14 other justices.

Justice Mariano del Castillo, however, couldn’t answer if there was indeed an SC full bench resolution legitimizing the IT consultant’s services.

SC insiders said each justice received an average of P152,000 monthly in 2017, but which this year increased to P198,000 with the implementation of the second tranche of the Salary Standardization Law.

Sereno, meantime, got about P180,000 in monthly salary last year, but which reached P235,000 now – still way below the P250,000 monthly consultancy fee she allocated to Macasaet for four years (2013-2017), or a total of about P12 million.

Deputy Court Administrator Raul Villanueva, head of the SC bids and awards committee, testified last week before the Umali committee that Macasaet’s consultancy fee was the “highest for an individual contract.”

He disclosed that she was initially given a P100,000 monthly fee that was later upgraded to P250,000, which they didn’t sanction but ended up in a “negotiated procurement,” where the “main criteria was the trust and confidence of the procuring agency” or end-user (Sereno).

Also yesterday, Del Castillo told lawmakers there was nothing wrong with Sereno’s acquisition of a luxury P5.1-million Toyota Land Cruiser as service vehicle because while it was not generally allowed, the office of the chief justice was among the exceptions.

“There is a legal basis for that if it is being purchased for security reasons,” he said, invoking Administrative Order 233 (series 2008), noting the exemptions for the five highest officials – president, vice president, Senate president, speaker and chief justice.

Del Castillo likewise testified further that the bulletproofing service vehicle for the Chief Justice was already in the procurement plan in 2014 but that it only pushed through in 2016.