JUSTICE Secretary Fredderick Vida said Friday that there are only 4,000 prosecutors nationwide handling hundreds of thousands of cases for preliminary investigation.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) said that there are currently 421,000 cases being assessed to see whether they meet the standard required for prosecution.
"Thousands of cases pass through us for preliminary investigation. These go through our roughly 4,000 prosecutors across the Philippines," Vida said as he asked the public for understanding if some complaints were taking too long to be resolved.
He said complaints must first satisfy the standard of prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction before an information can be filed in court.
"Not all of them are found to warrant the filing of charges," Vida said, noting that estimates based on case numbers must account for the possibility that a single case may involve multiple accused persons.
