THE government needs more than a thousand prosecutors to augment its legal services, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said yesterday as he called for more applicants to vacancies in the National Prosecution Service (NPS).
Guevarra said that while the Department of Justice (DOJ) is has been continuously screening applicants for the position, the list is still short of the required number of government prosecutors.
“There are about 500 nominations already with the Office of the President. I hope that more will be coming,” Guevarra said, adding they are confident Malacañang will approve the appointment papers.
The DOJ needs to fill up 1,057 prosecutorial posts.
The same problem was also raised by Guevarra’s predecessor, former justice secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II.
Earlier, Guevarra admitted that the insufficient number of prosecutors remains one of the major challenges that the DOJ is facing.
The shortage of prosecutors, according to the DOJ chief, has contributed to delays in the resolution of criminal complaints undergoing preliminary investigation before the NPS.
The National Bureau of Investigation, the main investigating agency of the DOJ, is also short of manpower.
A high-ranking official of the NBI who declined to be identified said they “have less than 600 agents” nationwide. — Ashzel Hachero
