ULAT NG HUDIKATURA 2017
The Filipino Youth: The Rising Heroes of Justice
HON. MARIA LOURDES P. A. SERENO
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines
[SALUTATIONS]
Maayonghaponsainyongtanan!
I always find such great pleasure in being with young people and the not so-young but still youthful luminaries of the legal profession. To be able to present to you my visions not only for the Judiciary, but also for future generations, is an opportunity I would not pass up.
The Province of Cebu is no stranger to the Judiciary. The Queen City of the South has produced two sons who have served as Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, Marcelo B. Fernan (1988-1991) and HilarioDavide Jr. (1998-2005). You, young people, stand on the shoulders of giants, whose contributions are still felt today.
For one, Chief Justice Fernan spearheaded the updating of the Code of Judicial Conduct, and in fact, planted the seeds for a continuous trial program, which we are finally institutionalizing come September 1. Chief Justice Davide, on the other hand, implemented the Action Program for Judicial Reform, which we continue to build on today. Both Chief Justices are not just magistrates, they are heroes who contributed to nation building.
Heroes. But what are heroes? Who are our nation’s heroes? These questions are in fact more relevant now.
On Monday, we will be celebrating National Heroes’ Day. It is a day when we remember to honor the many sacrifices of our Filipino heroes, both young and old. My dear young Cebuanos, take pride in the fact that it is here in the Province of Cebu, in Mactan City, where our ancestors first fought for their freedom and independence. Generations later, here you stand, heirs of revolution, in Cebu City, the shining hope of our nation. Today I want you to consider those who came before us, who dearly bought our freedom with their lives and their fire of spirit, and what their legacy means to us as a nation.
We are a nation of young heroes
Our ancestors waged the first revolutionary war in Asia against greater foreign powers. Even before the Philippine Revolution of 1896, we showed the world and ourselves who we truly are: a people whose indomitable spirit can conquer our greatest fears. Lapu-Lapu, the first Filipino hero who prevailed against Spanish forces in the Battle of Mactan, showed true Filipino courage and resilience amidst the overwhelming adversity surrounding his community.
Our ancestors’ fight against Spain was not led by battle-hardened veterans. It was spearheaded primarily by young, bright lights, Filipinos below the age of 40. They were not very different from you as you sit here assembled, at the close of your studies in law at this beloved institution, pondering on the significance of the legal education that University of San Carlos is affording you.
The likes of Andres Bonifacio, who was only 32 years old when he tore up his cedula; Emilio Aguinaldo who was 27 when he captured Kawit, Cavite; and even Jose Rizal, who was 26 when he wrote Noli Me Tangereand El Filibusterismo– were all such young people involved in the struggle of their lives. It was also with courage that our ancestors confronted the work of nation-building, a task less blood-drenched but no less vital and heroic. Juan Luna was who at 27 unveiled the Spolarium, and ApolinarioMabini was 35 when he wrote the first draft of the Malolos Constitution.
Even today, young heroes continue to give their all for our country. Many of them have fallen in Marawi, in defense of our nation and of our democracy. As of mid-August, over 120 soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines have been listed as “killed in action” while defending the city from terrorists. Many of them were at the cusp of their careers and personal lives. I can only imagine the depth of courage of these young men. Such bravery makes me profoundly grateful to be Filipino.
I ask you, therefore, my dear young Cebuanos – you who must now shape the country our ancestors fought and died for – to search your hearts for a seed of the same courage we have inherited as a people undaunted by youth, and daring to do great things for our nation. Many of these were people who may have thought themselves ordinary, but rose to the challenge of extraordinary times and in so doing transformed the course of our nation’s history.
Societal ills still prevail and for that, we, the generations before you, have not all served you well. Many of us grew weary and distracted by the business of “living”. We worried about leaving our children with ample inheritances, instead of seeing the common inheritance our generation would leave the next. We forgot that to degrade the commons, e.g., the environment and governance institutions, is to leave all of our children very much poorer. We contributed, my generation and those before mine, to frittering away our chances to build a strong and proud country.
Too many compromises attended our work, especially lawyers’ work and the work of justice. Instead of affirming the people’s desire to have a fully accountable government, some lawyers devoted their talent to hiding ill-gotten wealth and enabling corrupt practices. Instead of aiding a strict merit-based system for promotion and appointment to key positions, well-connected lawyers used all kinds of tricks to elevate those who could be relied on to be partial to them. Instead of advancing the people’s cause for a constitutionally-ordered system of checks and balances and strong institutions, some lawyers used insider access and pressure from the political sphere to weaken institutions.
In other words, we succumbed to the old malaise of forgetting: losing sight of where we come from and who we are. In the face of present injustices, some people rage at atrocities, but feel powerless to prevent them; others surrender to despair and take refuge in apathy as numbing comfort from pain. But my dear young people, this is not the entirety of us as a nation. Remember that Rizal, too, must have endured long nights of apparent futile labor over his manuscripts.
Young people, you must not fall prey to the dimming of memory; you must not give in to the weariness and frailty that has afflicted prior generations. You must resist all those who denigrate your lofty ideas about what the world should be. When the old and the jaded tell you to accept the status quo, to be pragmatic, to flow with the tide, you must stand your ground. You must rise up to be better than your elders.
Groundwork for the future
While we are waiting for you, the young people to take the reins, we of the elder generation have to try our best to soften the ground. It is our duty to implement the needed changes as much as we can so that you can build on a more solid foundation and rise higher than what we could reach in our lifetimes. We are reforming the rules of court, modernizing the courts, building courthouses that are intelligently-designed, and putting in more resources today so that tomorrow, when new crops of lawyers like you will appear before the courts, you will be practicing in a far better court environment than we have now.
But a performance report is an incomplete report card, if it is silent on the sobering realities that we face, the problems that are foremost in our consciousness. We acknowledge these realities, for as an old adage says, the first step to solving a problem is recognizing that the problem exists. This is especially true when the problem can only be solved through our collective action as a people.
So we acknowledge that despite the successes of some of judicial reform programs and although numbers show that courts are resolving more cases than before, the problem of slow and inaccessible justice is still a battle to be won. We need to do more to make justice feel real to our people. These are sober reminders of our duty to press on with the reforms and strengthen the Rule of Law.
Reforms are for people in the margins and those outside the centers
Strengthening the Rule of Law is not an empty rhetoric. I must emphasize that the reforms we have undertaken and are undertaking are steered by a deep empathy for marginalized Filipinos, who feel that the justice system is rigged against them. We have taken what I see as a philosophical shift in recognizing the need for greater access to justice for our fellowmen who are cash-challenged, distance-disadvantaged, and information-deprived. For quite some time now, the Court has been looking not only at income levels to determine those whose access to courts we should facilitate; more broadly, we seek to reduce the operational barriers that have made justice elusive and difficult to obtain for most Filipinos. Considering the diversity of our roughly 108 million population, coupled with the fact that this population is dispersed throughout 7,641 islands at home, while over 30 foreign countries host 10% of this population abroad, the Court keenly understands a new paradigm is necessary.
You can see this paradigm shift in reforms such as the expansion of the small claims courts, where cases are resolved in 2-6 months, which benefit OFWs like many of your parents, who only have short vacations in the Philippines and do not have sufficient time to spend in litigation. Lawyers are also disallowed in small claims courts, which enables the wage earner, the small trader, and others who cannot afford the services of counsel to protect their claims in court.
As much as we can also, reforms are spread out to different parts of the country, in our goal of increasing access to justice. You will see that reforms are being implemented in regions outside the capital, where people often do not have sufficient access to lawyers and courts or even if they have access to courts, these courts do not have the complete resources to do their jobs. You can see that we deployed 635 court decongestion officers to help decongest all courts across the country. The deployment of decongestion officers is an expansion of Hustisyeah, a one-time case decongestion program participated in by law students who assisted judges in legal research and formulation of case decongestion plans. I believe some of you here today in USC have been part of Hustisyeah at some point. Since its inception in 2013 to date, 62% or 32,060 out of 51,825 priority cases targeted for disposition have been removed from the dockets. Hustisyeah! is another clear example of the youth’s potential in shaping the direction of our country.
Many of our big court infrastructure projects are in Visayas and Mindanao, including the 1-billion peso Judiciary Complex in Cebu City, 368-million peso expansion of the Mandaue Hall of Justice, and the 779-million peso Cagayan de Oro Hall of Justice. Region VII, which includes Cebu, is also one of the first 4 regions where for the first time internet connectivity is being deployed in all courts.
To further the reach of access to justice, especially to the underserved parts of the country, the Enhanced Justice on Wheels (EJOW) Program was launched to enable make-shift court buses to reach far flung areas. While it has already facilitated the release of 9,000+ prisoners as of date, we expect it to further touch the lives of many more Filipinos whose life still rests in uncertainty inside detention cells/prisons.
The Court has also pushed for the establishment of legal aid clinics in law schools to increase the reach of legal aid to the underprivileged, while molding young minds into what lawyering should truly be about.
Speeding Up the Wheels of Justice
We are also implementing reforms to address the long-standing cry of our people that “justice delayed is justice denied.” Your generation, which is used to the fast-pace solutions through online and mobile apps, will appreciate the transformation that we are aiming for with these reforms.
The Revised Guidelines for Continuous Trial of Criminal Cases, which will take effect nationwide on 1 September 2017, will allow us to conduct trials which are set one day apart, uninterrupted by dilatory postponements. Our I.T. Master Plan, the Enterprise Information Systems Plan or EISP is the Judiciary’s IT Master Plan, will also pave the way for a modern, efficient and transparent court system. Its key component, the eCourts system, is a path to a future when lawyers can file pleadings by uploading them online while in their offices; when litigants can check the status of their cases and view their online case records through their computers or smartphones; when electronic notices to parties are sent via email or SMS. It is a future when halls of justice are not littered with piles of papers as all court documents are digitized; when judges automatically issue almost all court orders immediately after hearings using templates in an app; when judges access all their records and manage their court dockets with the click of a mouse.
By 2017, eCourts will be deployed in 10 cities, including Cebu City, or a total of 298 courts. As of August 2017, eCourts has been deployed to 274 courts, while the remaining 24 courts are undergoing training. Out of the 274 eCourts, 159 are conducting automated hearings, wherein courts issue their orders within minutes after their hearings, cutting trial time by at least a month because the orders need not go through snail mail to reach the lawyers and litigants.
In other words, when you begin your careers as lawyers, you can litigate your cases by just looking at your smartphones and laptops. It will be justice at the tip of your fingers.
Bear in mind however that these reforms are not done in isolation. If prosecutors, public attorneys, and the police do not perform their duties as well, the entire justice system crumbles. This is the reason why the Justice Sector Coordinating Council (comprised of the SC, DOJ and DILG) are tirelessly working to implement sector-wide reform initiatives, such as the eSubpoena system, which enables the courts to send an electronic subpoena to police witnesses wherever they may be assigned in the country. Tomorrow, in fact, will mark the first time that the Principals of the Council will meet in Cebu City to determine the city’s readiness to become a justice zone, or a center of justice and rule of law in the Philippines.
In view of all these efforts, what is your role, our dear Filipino youth? You, the Filipino youth, are the rising heroes of justice. We are but enablers for you to pursue the path and spirit of heroism that are already ingrained in your souls. What we have done in the judiciary and what we are still doing are preparatory works for future generations to relentlessly pursue a sense of justice that is impartial and fair, that is equitable, and that allows each and every Filipino litigant to maintain a sense of dignity in every step of the process.
Allow me to point you in the direction of one of the Supreme Court’s Committees. The Committee on Continuing Legal Education and Bar Matters and its various Sub-Committees are your avenues to talk to us and engage us. The Sub-Committees are channels for you to influence the rules that will define who the future members of the Bar will be, the rules on maintenance of good standing in the Bar, and procedures and penalties in connection with complaints against lawyers as we systematize accountability and ethics in the profession.
Should you also in the future, find it in your hearts to join the judiciary and help us in our cause, please be assured that the Judicial and Bar Council, as it is doing today, shall fairly assess your applicants and give everyone a fair chance to serve the Filipino people.
So please remember that even outside the confines of our interaction with peers and family alike, integrity must be maintained, if we are to pursue what is true, what is honorable, and what is right. It is holding on to one’s principles even when doing so isn’t convenient, fashionable or comfortable. It is refusing to compromise even when one is told that “no one would know” because “I would know.” It is standing up for what is right, even when no one else is standing up for it. It is internalizing integrity in everything that we do, even when everyone else is doing the opposite.
Remember that there are so many ways to help. If you find yourself in a position to help people understand how the law or the courts work, then by all means do so. In a world where “alternative facts” and “hyperbole” are fast blurring the lines between truth and lies, any person who can help the courts, clients and the public sift truth from lies performs a valuable service. If you find yourself in a position to right a wrong, please do so. If you find yourself in a position where you need to decide between a status quo that is convenient and standing up for principle, the privilege of legal knowledge requires that we take the principled stand. If you find yourself in a position to give voice to those who find themselves voiceless, speak out.