LAWYER Persida Acosta, who heads the Public Attorneys Office (PAO), an agency under the Department of Justice, is known to be passionate and thorough in her advocacies, which most of the time concern the welfare of the poor and the underprivileged.
Acosta has been the tinder that lights up the anti-Dengvaxia movement or hysteria whenever there's a tendency to slacken the effort. She immerses herself in cases of national significance and is not afraid to take the contrarian position. The PAO chief believes earnestly in the importance of her lawyer-workers' mission that she worked hard to give them commensurate salaries, which Congress approved in a legislation.
“PAO lawyers have been working day and night, even our pregnant lawyers, those with diabetes, they go to police stations, to courts to assist our indigent clients,” Acosta said in a recent press conference, citing that PAO has been serving the public since the 1970s called Citizen’s Legal Assistance Office (CLAO).
Recently, Acosta was peeved when she received reports that senatorial candidate Raffy Tulfo, a mediaman, said that if elected senator, he will create his own free legal assistance team because PAO lawyers are always absent during inquest proceedings despite their high salary. This led Acosta to plead:
“It is unfair to generalize our PAO lawyers. Please spare PAO from politics.”
She said, if PAO lawyers are absent, how come it has served a total of 85,533 indigent clients during inquest investigation and custodial interrogation. In 2021 alone while the country is battling Covid-19, Acosta said a total of 32,551 cases assisted by PAO have been dismissed with Prejudice; 1,732 motions to quash have been granted (cases dismissed due to faulty charge sheet); 2,793 demurrer to evidence have been granted (cases dismissed due to weak evidence presented by the prosecution).
Meanwhile, 33,756 have been provisionally dismissed while 112,608 were convicted to a lesser offense while 15,371 were granted probation. She said in 2021, PAO gave various forms of assistance to a total of 9,707,274 clients which is higher that 2020 with only 6,687,630.
These numbers tell us that the PAO is up-to-date with its constitutional mandate. It provides adequate free legal services to indigent citizens pursuant to Section 11, Article 3 of the 1987 Constitution, which states that
“Free access to courts and quasi-judicial bodies and adequate legal assistance shall not be denied to any person by reason of poverty.”
Raffy Tulfo should stick to dishing out campaign promises without lacing these with unfounded accusations against government agencies.
And while we are at it, why doesn't Tulfo attack real offices involved in corruption, like the Department of Tourism which used to be headed by a secretary who was fired because she approved a contract which, to Duterte's mind, is disadvantageous to the government?