Supreme Court Associate Justice Marvic Mario Victor Leonen has racked up the top spots in his division and the court en banc in terms of pending cases.
Documents from the court show that aside from 82 unresolved en banc cases, Leonen also has 899 pending cases in the Third Division as of March 31, 2020.
The division’s Statistics on Judicial Pending Cases was signed by Division Clerk of Court Misael Domingo Battung erd.
Leonen has 199 cases classified as “aging” and 700 “non-aging” cases in the Third Division which he heads.
Non-aging cases are cases which are waiting for other pleadings to be submitted.
Other members of the Third Division at that time when the statistics were made were
Justices Alexander Gesmundo, Rosmari Carandang, Rodil Zalameda and Samuel Gaerlan.
Leonen has been with the Supreme Court for eight years, having been appointed by President Benigno Aquino 3rd on Nov. 21, 2012. He turns 58 years old on December 29.
He is the division’s most senior magistrate. Gesmundo has been with the court for three years, Carandang for two years, Zalameda for little more than a year and Gaerlan for almost a year.
The Manila Times obtained records showing that of the 82 pending cases in the court en banc, 37 are aging cases.
Leonen also has 45 non-aging cases.
Two cases have been gathering dust for almost eight years, one case for seven years, two for six years, 14 for five years, one case for four years, six cases for three years and nine cases for two years.
Despite his huge backlog, Leonen has so far eluded Supreme Court sanctions.
By comparison, Court of Appeals Associate Justice Marilyn Lagura-Yap, who was found guilty of gross inefficiency, was docked by the Supreme Court with a fine equivalent to her annual salary.
A Times source said Leonen himself asked the high court to dismiss Laguna-Yap for failure to resolve 160 cases while she was a Regional Trial Court judge.
The source said Leonen is very slow in disposing of cases because he concentrates on dissents and reflections.
On the other hand, four other magistrates — Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta, Senior Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa and Gesmundo — have smaller backlogs than Leonen’s. Jomar Canlas