MORE indigent Filipinos – now pegged at over 16.4-million- have been solely depending on highly-reliable but free legal assistance from the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) which has been begging for more lawyers to meet the growing demand from the poor clients nationwide.
Under the leadership of its chief, Atty. Persida Rueda-Acosta, PAO said it has to maximize its manpower as it cited its public attorney-to-court ratio which remained at one lawyer for every two courts as more courts have increased over the years.
With most of the country’s so-called public defenders facing heavy workload and dealing with longer hours of work, PAO still achieved a 100 percent obligation rate and a 100 percent disbursement rate in 2025, Nelson Acevedo, PAO’s supervising administrative officer.
Saying its public legal assistance program has also posted 100 percent obligation and disbursement rates, Acevedo reiterated that the public attorney-to-court ratio still remained at 1:2 from 2023 to 2025 against the 1:1 target while the agency was still showing strong absorptive capacity.
With just over 2,676 public attorneys nationwide, their responsibilities extend beyond appearing in court, according to Atty. Rigel Salvador, PAO’s Field Operations and Statistics Service head.
Both Acevedo and Salvador said that public attorneys were also preoccupied in handling criminal, civil and labor cases as well as quasi-judicial proceedings, mediation and conciliation, barangay outreach, jail visits, home and hospital visits, documentation and notarial services.
Meanwhile, Bagong Henerasyon Rep. Roberto Nazal Jr. has urged his colleagues in Congress to consider providing additional funding to PAO, noting the agency’s ‘excellent performance’ while citing records.
“Shouldn’t we be giving additional funding to agencies like PAO that have demonstrated that they can fully utilize and disburse their budget, especially when there is clearly still an unmet need for their services?” the party-list lawmaker asked.
PAO operates 392 regional and district offices nationwide, located in almost every city and municipality and at or near halls of justice.
“These offices provide free legal advice, court representation and counseling to qualified clients even much beyond office hours as our public lawyers are attending to indigent Filipinos who have legal concerns even during wee hours,” the PAO officials said.
Despite the “obvious” lack of manpower, specifically public attorneys, its current workforce can still effectively carry out its sworn duty to serve the people, particularly the poor sector.
