CHIEF Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno disclosed last week plans to transfer the Supreme Court (SC) to a state-of-the-art building situated at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig by 2019.
Sereno told reporters in an interview the High Court is already in the process of acquiring the land where the building will rise.
Sereno added the SC has already found a property in the BGC after securing the needed funding from the Department of Budget and Management.
“We were already issued a certificate of disaster clearance that the side [of the land] is not within the [West Valley] fault area,” she said.
Sereno was referring to a 21,000-square-meter lot in Fort Bonifacio worth P1.28 billion, payable in 10 years, with an annual amortization of P128 million.
“[The project] is at the stage now where we are asking money for the building itself because the government has already agreed to fund the acquisition of the land,” Sereno said.
With the approval of the budget and if the plan will proceed without any problem, she expects the project to be finished in 2019.
“Modern construction timetable will enable us to have a building in three to four years—assuming that there is no major hitch. Hopefully in about four years or an allowance of up to five years, we will have our own building,” she said.
The land where the SC, the Department of Justice and the Court of Apppeals buildings currently stand belongs to the University of the Philippines.
“We should really have a land in the name of the court and a building that is modern, disaster-resilient, technology-enabled, and that will stand as the symbol of the Filipino sense of justice,” Sereno pointed out.
Top architect and urban planner Felino Palafox Jr. is being considered to lead the construction of the proposed building and compound.
