Manila seen to have P2.8-B hall of justice by June 2022

With its courts strewn across different buildings in the city hall and around, Manila will by June 2022 have its own P2.8-billion court house.

According to Court Administrator Adoracion Filomena Ignacio, the procurement process is expected to last six months barring any hitch.

The construction is expected to take two years.

Manila's courtrooms are currently spread out in the city hall, the old Ombudsman and NAWASA buildings, and at the former Masagana Complex on Kalaw Avenue.

The new Hall of Justice will rise within an archaeological complex adjacent to the Mehan Garden, Arroceros, Lawton, and areas known as "Parian."

The new court house will be bounded by the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office, N. Lopez Street, the Boy Scouts of the Philippines Building, and G.A.J. Villegas Street.

It will be composed of three "environment-friendly and green certified" interconnected buildings, including the old GSIS building, the new expansion building, and the parking building, and will house 120 courtrooms and three special courtrooms.

It will also have a Philippine Mediation Center, archives, records and evidence rooms, conference and meeting rooms, and prisoner holding rooms, according to the SC Public Information Office.

The money to fund the project wufrom the judiciary's savings, said Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo, the chair of the coordinating committee for the halls of justice for Manila.

Gesmundo said Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio offered "invaluable support" for the "flagship" project.

"Justice Carpio saw the importance of the Manila Hall of Justice project not just for judges, court personnel, and litigants in the City of Manila, he also saw it an opportunity to showcase it as the first self-funded infrastructure of the Judiciary." Gesmundo said.

Carpio said that the project had eight groundbreakings, the last in 2012.

Though the Arroceros lot was already in the name of the SC and the P1.83 billion needed for construction already deposited with Land Bank, he said it took the SC seven years and counting to hurdle the procurement law and the National Cultural Heritage Act.

But with the detailed design awarded and the terms of reference for construction works now completed, the SC will finally be able to bid out the actual construction of the Hall of Justice, the retiring justice said.

Construction may be halted in case artifacts "or any item of historical or cultural significance" will be uncovered during excavation in the archaeological complex, said Ignacio. —NB, GMA News