After several pleas in the past, the almighty Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) finally announced the hiring of judges for the nine vacant salas in the Municipal Trial Courts (MCTC) here.

It has been touted that there are more judges in the Regional Trial Courts (RTC) here than the MTCs. It's true. The 10 RTCs in Bohol have complete presiding judges including RTC branches 1, 2, 3, 4, 47, 48 and 49 all based in Tagbilaran City. The other RTC branches are in Loay, Carmen and Talibon.

For one, the lack of MTC judges jeopardized the prosecution of criminal cases especially those committed in the municipalities not to mention the clogging up of civil cases. It was accidentally solved when the Supreme Court decided last year to strip MTC judges of their power to conduct inquest investigations on criminal cases cognizable by the RTC.

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Last Thursday, the JBC announced through the Philippine Daily Inquirer, page A9, that it is now accepting applications for judicial positions for the nine vacant MCTCs in Bohol.

These include the 5th MCTC in Trinidad-San Miguel-Bien Unido; 6th MCTC in Ubay-Carlos P. Garcia' 7th MCTC in Alicia-Mabini; 8th MCTC in Candijay-Anda and 9th MCTC in Guindulman-Duero.

Also included in the opening are the 15th MCTC in Bilar-Sevilla; 16th MCTC in Carmen-Batuan; 17th MCTC in Sierra Bullones-Pilar and the 20th MCTC in Catigbian-San Isidro-Sagbayan.

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SP UPDATES. The 9th Sangguniang Panlungsod of Tagbilaran passed last Wednesday Proposed Resolution No. 14-06 entitled An Ordinance Further Amending Section 147 of City Ordinance No. C-001 Otherwise Known as the Code of Administrative Ordinances of the City of Tagbilaran.

The proposed ordinance was authored by Vice Mayor Nuevas Montes to revise the scholarship program of the city government. We sponsored the proposed ordinance as chairman of the committee on education. The measure passed the legislative wringer smoothly.

Proposed Ordinance No. 03-06 imposing a mayor's permit fee on electric and telecommunications posts owned by public utility companies and other entities which are erected on government and private lots within the city was re-committed to the committee on public utilities chaired by City Councilor Edgar Bompat for further studies after a lengthy but spirited floor deliberation last Wednesday.

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INBOX. There is some sort of tranquility in our inbox last week save for an e-mail from one Jojo Taduran of Toronto, Canada who wrote about the exploits of a 73-year old Filipino who is still active in the workforce there.

We also got this forwarded e-mail from a concerned resident of Corella Bohol using the nom de guerre Hugo Ambrosio Tubigbahandi about the in-fighting among the politicians there.

Our gmail and hotmail e-mail inboxes are relatively quite this week. And we thank God for that. Amen.

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