Speech delivered by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno during the Launch
of the Enhanced Justice on Wheels (EJOW) in Quezon City on November 9,
2012 at the City Hall, Quezon City
Associate Justice Mar Del Castillo, Justice Adolf Azcuna, Honorable Mayor
Herbert Bautista, Vice-Mayor Joy Belmonte, City Administrator [Victor] Endriga, ACA
[Jenny Lind] Delorino, beloved judges of Quezon City, beloved employees of Quezon
City, my friends from the NGOs, from the IBP, from the PNP. Maganda pong umaga sa
inyong lahat. At maraming salamat sa kabutihan ng inyong loob sa pag-welcome sa
amin ni Justice Del Castillo, at ang aming mga kasamahan dito sa Quezon City.
Salamat po.
Ako nga po ay isang batang Kamuning. Tumatawa si Mayor kasi may ibig
sabihin po yon eh. Pag sinabing batang Kamuning, kung baga sa local ano eh...siga ka,
ano Mayor? Ang Kamuning ho kasi ang showbiz capital ng Pilipinas. Dyan galing ang
banda at mga artista na laging naga-audition sa ABS-CBN at GMA-7. So for the
longest time, dominated namin ang dalawang estasyon na yon. Kaya iba ho pag tatak
Kamuning ka. So I stayed in Kamuning for 26 years and a half. And I was born and
raised in the various streets there. When I was born, I was brought home to Scout
Gandia. We moved to K-8th, then we had a house in Kamuning Road near Delgado
Hospital. So ganyan po kalalim ang pagkatubo ko sa Kamuning. Ang tambayan ko po
non ay Morato, palengke ng Kamuning, dyan sa ABS-CBN, sa Scout Ybardolaza. Alam
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ng mga taga-Quezon City ang ibig sabihin na ganyan ang buhay ng isang tao.
Matapos ay lumipat ako sa U.P., sa campus, sa faculty housing. And I stayed there
until I was age 45. And I left Quezon City only in 2005. So my heart belongs to
Quezon City.
Knowing the temperament of the people in Quezon City, I know why so many
of the reform agenda of the Court is being experimented through and implemented
by the courts of Quezon City. I was telling Mayor Bautista. “Mayor, sasaya ka sa
maririnig mo. Hindi ka manghihinayang sa 100 million mo na binuhos sa bagong
building at sa 30 million mo na gagamitin sa repair sa lumang building.” Kasi marami
po akong ikekwento sa inyo. Pero bago ako magsimula non, gusto ko sabihin kay
Mayor na fan ako ni Mayor magsimula noong ako ay bata pa. Yung inyo pong mga
comedy shows, yung Bagets, lahat po napanood ko po iyan.
So from this Justice, let me congratulate you for being a superb artist, for
having the gift of communicating to our people. And let me also thank you for having
the stewardship of Quezon City. Of course, Administrator Victor Endriga is an
institution whose own reform initiatives are widely-recognized. Vice-Mayor's family
is an institution also of Quezon City. You are there somewhere in the New Manila
area, but your family still make up a lot of the leadership of Quezon City, and for that
I am grateful to you and your family. And as I was telling [the Vice-Mayor], allow me
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to convey my gratitude to the speaker [of the House] for the support he has been
giving the judiciary.
Allow me now to answer these specific concerns Mayor Herbert raised in his
speech, before I go to my prepared speech. Ang sabi po nya nga, government project
ang delivery ng justice, do not delay. Matutuwa po si Mayor pag malaman nya na ang
dami na pong judicial reform initiatives na ginagawa. Ito na nga pong EJOW Project,
which I will explain later, is a judiciary reform project in itself. Recently, we adopted
the Judicial Affidavit Rule. Yung judicial affidavit, Mayor, ay hindi na kailangan ng
direct testimony in oral form. Right away affidavits na ang pag-serve at pag-present
non. So hopefully, it will cut 50% of litigation time. Lalo na po yung mga pulis, si
General Mario dela Vega. Yung mga weaknesses nyo po. Basta't kasama ang
prosecution at matutulungan lang at ibibigay lang ng pulis ang testimony in affidavit
form. Hindi nyo na po sasabihin kay Mayor na kaya wala sila sa kalye kasi nandun sila
lagi sa korte. Pero they have to be there of course for cross-examination but that will
already obviate many of the aggravations that we are complaining of in the ability to
produce direct testimony and to improve a major part of the process in the trial.
I am also very happy to announce that with the consent of the judges of
Quezon City, we have agreed that the beginning of this year, end of January or
somewhere thereabouts, we are already able to complete the incorporation of data in
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the first city electronic court in the Philippines. This is a challenge to our judges. This
will be the first city where all the important information regarding cases that they
will need to manage their dockets will be already in electronic form. They will be
seeing it in their own dashboards, and the executive judges will be able to manage
the entire area simply by monitoring what is on their screen. And I will also be able
to monitor from my screen in the Supreme Court the performance of the judges in
the Quezon City.
We need to congratulate them for their bravery. Alam nyo matapang po sila.
They are willing to be challenged. Because when anything goes electronic, it is
measurable, more measurable than when it is simply on paper record. But here they
are willing to open themselves up to a more scientific way of measuring
performance and being able to track their cases. ‘Wag po kayo matakot. Kasama nyo
ako. I know they are a little scared right now. But we will be able to do it. And I'm
with you all the way. Whatever you need, just tell me EJs. I hope the encoders are
already starting their work... They are? You have all approved them? They are all of
your own choice, right? If you have any complaint, if you need more, tell me EJs
because I have already cleared instruction that the first city E-Court in the country
will be given priority by the Supreme Court. In fact, anything on paper, any request
in connection with that experiment I immediately sign. You have to just log on.
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Because we have to prove that here in Quezon City, we break history. You are
making history.
And because sometime either in January or February when we are able to do
that, we are going to do an aggressive docket congestion nationwide. And Quezon
City will have an advantage in our docket decongestion program because the
electronic system that is being designed will allow them immediately to prioritize
those cases that need to be cleared. In other words, there will be a management
report that the system itself will generate that will allow them identify which cases
can be disposed of immediately.
Now we have an aggressive decongestion project, Mayor and Vice-Mayor. And
allow me to say that Quezon City, from our studies, have one of the most clogged
dockets in the entire country. Some judges here have thousands of cases. So when
you give allowances to our judges, it is being invested very wisely. So I encourage
you to continue doing so. You know our judges have been pooling from their own
pockets the expenses rendered when employees go overtime—they buy pizza,
lechon manok for their employees. Di na ho nila napapa-reimburse sa Supreme
Court yan. But they are on overtime mode right now because their targets are quite
a challenge. Mabigat po ang kanilang kailangang patunayan sa taong bayan. So I can
be proud of the fact that the Quezon City judges are of the rare breed of heroes that
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our country desperately needs. Ito po ang heroes namin. Matapang po sila sa judicial
reform.
Yung docket decongestion projects po namin, the aggressive targets, I hope that
from the 6,500 cases that are recorded in the lower courts right now, we hope to
halve them in three to three and a half years time. Because if we do not proceed
with an aggressive decongestion program, it will takes us 20 years for everything to
be completely current. And this you understand, as administrators of a large
metropolitan cities, requires a lot of resources. So I ask those in the local
government units, the national government agencies, development partners, and the
private sector to consider investing in judicial reform. If there is anything, that will
impact immediately the lives of our people, it will be improvements in the way
justice is administered. So look at it as a long term sustainable investment with direct
and indirect benefits.
Ang sinasabi ko nga po tungkol sa mga lipunan: ang mga tao ‘di naman
nagrerebelde masyado, lalo na ang Pilipino, hindi lang dahil hindi sagana masyado ang
pagkain. Pero kung merong injustice, dyan po nagkakaroon ng feelings of
rebelliousness.
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So allow me to encourage everyone to please in turn encourage our judges.
Support them in every way you can, because the task they they are performing will
redound the benefit of your city. Any good that they do, any case turnaround that
they are able to accomplish, ang Quezon City po direct beneficiary. Yung mga litigants
nila po na kanilang hinahawakan ay mga botante po. So kung masaya ang botante
nyo dahil ang mga huwes po natin ay efficient, napakaganda po ng ating sistema. So
it makes every sense to continue investing in an improved judiciary.
Hinihingi ko rin po kay Speaker, through the daughter, na tignan din po ang
budget ng judiciary. Alam nyo po ang judiciary, ang budget namin, 0.78 percent lang.
Wala pa pong 1% ng entire national budget. Kung iisipin nyo po, kasi may tinatawag
po tayong third great branch of government. Pano po kami magiging great kung
hindi man lang umaabot sa 1% ng GAA ang budget na binibigay sa amin.
Sa susunod pong mga buwan, aggressive po kami sa hudikatura na
magpapakita sa taong-bayan ang aming tunay na kalagayan, ang aming tunay na
pangangailangan. Paprankahin po namin kayo sa aming kakulangan. Sasabihin din
po namin ang achievable targets po namin. Hindi naman po kami mangangako ng
hindi namin kayang ibigay. ‘Pag pumusta po kayo, syempre hindi ho maganda ang
salitang pusta, pero ganon na ho. ‘Pag pumusta kayo sa judicial reform, i-assure ko
ho na mananalo kayo.
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So salamat po sa presensya nyo ngayon. Ngayon hayaan nyo naman po ako
ikwento kung bakit nandito kami ni Justice Del Castillo, Justice Azcuna, ni Court Ad
Marquez, at lahat po ng team ay nandito.
I think this is a momentous event in the life and engagement of the court with
the people. If there is anything that we can all be proud, is that the Enhanced Justice
on Wheels program (EJOW) has given a visible face to the meaning of justice—all
rolled into one package. It sums up to a certain extent some of the deepest
aspirations of the judiciary, as the judiciary reflects on its role in the country. The
EJOW is intended to expedite trials and conclude them by accelerating actions that
may be taken on some of the cases that are very near to its logical conclusion. Many
detention prisoners as a result are... (VIDEO FILE CORRUPTED 5 seconds). Justice
Del Castillo has shown us, through statistics the kind of accelerated release of
detention prisoners that every EJOW visit has entailed. In the eyes of an ordinary
citizen—and this the politicians know very well—perhaps there are very few
experiences as graphic as the release of prisons that EJOW visits create.
Second, while the judiciary has already incorporated alternative dispute
resolution mechanisms as a means of bringing about just, and allow me to
emphasize, speedy conclusions to litigations by creating mediation units under the
leadership of Justice Adolf Azcuna, the PHILJA and the Philippine Mediation Center,
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and thereby providing for an opportunity for other dispute resolutions by judges
who are not necessarily going to litigate the case. The EJOW program, by allowing
mediation to take place in its buses illustrates the belief once more that there are
other ways of bringing about justice than the traditional type of litigation. This in
turn informs the public that the judiciary believes that many solutions to problems
in life can be found by the disputant's themselves, talking to each other in front of a
third party who is personally disinterested in either side's success and the third
party's interest consisting only in facilitating an amicable solution to a dispute that
would otherwise drag for years. For the ordinary Filipino, this is a way by which his
or her mind would be open to the realization that even formal public institutions
such as the judiciary is interested in creative solutions to the citizen's problems.
Third, the EJOW has, simply by the concentrated effort in bringing about its
presence in a locality impels the court to process cases faster, even those that do not
necessarily need termination or closure. It has, in a certain sense, a partial cleansing
effect in the system by way of partial clearing of the dockets in the local courts where
the EJOW is destined for.
Fourth, the jail visitation, by allowing justice and judges to personally visit the
inmates in the localities' detention centers, gives both an education to the
magistrates to the actual conditions of the inmates, and opens at the same time the
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inmates' eyes that justices and judges do care about them as human beings. that the
judiciary, far from being indifferent to the inmate's conditions, does not cease to
think about ways to ensure that only persons who should stay in jail are there, and
those who should otherwise be released should be allowed to rejoin normal society
and should not stay behind bars a minute longer.
Fifth, the provisional medical and dental services, while usually it is the direct
contribution of local governments and private entities, shows the human side of the
prisoners. That the detention prisons should still be a place where their personal
needs are considered and attended to.
Sixth, the information and education component of the program allows the
judiciary to extend the program beyond the courtroom and opens eyes to the fact
that there are rights and obligations that its members need to be aware of and
allows participants to thereby imbibe a stronger sense of civic duty.
Seventh, the element of legal aid provided by the IBP completes the
characterization of the delivery of justice as a community effort whereby even
private institutions who are tasked to provide legal services to the community are
facilitating the understanding of the cases that are given to them for assistance.
It serves many purposes. While it is correct that it duplicates some of the
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inherent functions that are already being discharged by our courts, it still catalyzes
and encapsulates the totality of the kind of attitude that the judiciary has toward the
delivery of justice. This we hope is therefore a graphic message we are delivering to
our people. And with this, knowing that it serves these many purposes, and that it
contains a sense of mission to the community which it visits, I wish to congratulate
the organizer of the EJOW for Quezon City, which include some persons from the
judiciary but also people from the local government unit and the private sector,
especially Justice Mariano Del Castillo, the chairman of the EJOW, and the local
leadership of Quezon City headed by its Mayor and Vice-Mayor. I wish you therefore,
all of you gathered here today, a most fruitful, meaningful day for justice. Mabuhay
po kayong lahat.
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