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According to the Philippine Star, a third party audit (part of the 2011Haydee Yorac Lecture Series) conducted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the American Bar Association (ABA) for the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) on pending civil and criminal cases under resolution by the Ombudsman, the anti-graft court, and the highest court of the land showed the following findings:
1. The average age of an ill-gotten wealth case pending before the Ombudsman is almost nine years, while for the Sandiganbayan, it is 20 years.
2. The average time for the Supreme Court to resolve mere “incidents,” or interlocutory appeals, the many motions that can be filed by parties questioning rulings on various issues elevated to it from the Ombudsman, is six years.
3. The average age of pending motions elevated to the Supreme Court from cases pending before the Sandiganbayan is nine years.
4. Twenty-five years after the 1986 EDSA 1 revolution and the creation of the PCGG, majority of the civil and criminal cases filed against the Marcoses and their cronies are still pending before the Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court, if not still under resolution by the Ombudsman.5. Interlocutory appeals filed either by the PCGG or the defendants were the major causes of delay in the resolution of the ill-gotten wealth cases.
6. The long resolution of interlocutory appeals, filed before the Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court, also aggravate the problem, with the time to decide on such appeals, in the case of the High Tribunal, taking an average of six years to as long as 21 years.
7. There is a need for the courts, particularly the Sandiganbayan and the Supreme Court, to restrict the acceptance of such interlocutory appeals.
8. In the USA, such old cases are unheard of due to a prohibition on the filing of interlocutory appeals in the middle of the case proceedings.
9. 78 percent of cases pending before the Sandiganbayan are still unresolved.
