“Magistrates must be given discretion to defer the disposition of certain cases to make way for other equally important matters in this Court's agenda. “In Coscolluela v. Sandiganbayan, et al., this Court noted that ‘the right to speedy disposition of cases should be understood to be a relative or flexible concept such that a mere mathematical reckoning of the time involved would not be sufficient.’ “As a final note, the prescribed time limit should not be ignored as to render nugatory the spirit which breathes life to the letter of the 1987 Constitution. Ultimately, courts must strike an objective and reasonable balance in disposing cases promptly, while maintaining judicious tenacity in interpreting and applying the law.”47 There is of course the matter of institutional capacity to absorb an expanding caseload, which has been pointed as a key contributor to the delay in case disposition. 48 While the number of cases filed before the Supreme Court may increase, the number of the Supreme Court Divisions and the number of the members of the High Court have remained constant and cannot be augmented without amending the 1987 Constitution. Nonetheless, said difficulty should not deter the High Court from pursuing the serious studies and efforts that it is undertaking to address the need for the speedy disposition of cases that have been clogging the Court’s dockets for many years.49 As to where exactly the bottlenecks occur, it is difficult to determine with the information on hand. The dates on when cases are actually submitted for decision at each level (Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the NLRC, or the NLRC Labor Arbiter) are not indicated in the published decisions by the Supreme Court. Due to this lack of information, it will require more effort to trace at which juncture any particular case had endured extreme delays. Addressing the challenges of institutional capacity for the long term will require reforms in the judicial architecture. Meantime at the interim, procedural enhancements could be proposed to improve administrative efficiency in the judiciary and thus compel duty bearers to act with more expediency. In a recent public pronouncement, Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo announced that the speedy resolution of cases is one of his short-term plans for the judiciary. SC Chief Justice Gesmundo aims to comply with the directory period of 2 years for the Supreme Court to resolve cases pursuant to Section 15(1) of Article VIII of the 1987 Constitution.50 47 48 49 50 Ibid. Asia Foundation, “Legal and Justice Reforms in the Philippines” https://asiafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Philippines_LAW_2017.pdf See 47 See, https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2021/6/11/SC-resolve-cases-filed-after-April-5-within-2years.html?fbclid=IwAR10NAaNqb8qAQ4HX9jxEdHFPkKADD2sgYivNDpWEtQAE6A_LUAHioV mX8s 26