Settlement of conflicts

I attended the whole day Tuesday an advance course for mediators under the auspices of the Supreme Court’s Philippine Judicial Academy and the Philippine Mediation Center headed by retired Supreme Court Administrator Justice Bernardo Ponferada and its executive officer Atty. Andrew Macahel Ong. Justice Ponferada used to be an executive RTC judge here.

As mediators we took up the management of conflicts. As mediators, what we do is bring the two parties together to settle the conflict out of court to save litigants the hassles of litigation and its accompanying personal and financial costs.

There are five provinces where mediation is practised by the courts. They are Misamis Oriental and the City of Cagayan de Oro, La Union and the city of San Fernando, Benguet and the city of Baguio, Pampanga and the city of San Fernando, and Negros Occidental and the city of Bacolod.

I will go back later to this topic. In this project of the Supreme Court, Bacolod and Negros Occidental came out the best.

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An old friend, Soter Tusalem, sent me a long letter telling me our boxer Manny Pacquiao should be wary of the Ides of March when he meets Marquez on March 15 (US time).

And he also warned President Arroyo of the Ides of March, not to go to the Senate. On March 15, 44 B.C. Julius Caesar went to the Senate against the advice of the soothsayers of the Ides of March but he did not listen.

He was stabbed 30 times by conspirators led by Brutus and Cassius at the foot of the statue of Pompey in the Senate. Caesar was better, only 30 stabbed him, some of them not at his back.

Former Speaker Jose de Venecia was applauded by Congressmen in Congress in his speech. Then a voting was made whether to oust him or not. One hundred seventy four of those who applauded him voted to kick him out. One consolation of JDV is that he proved to be better than Julius Caesar.

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Lesson for our leaders, forget the achievements you made. If people don’t like you especially for corruption, they will forget the good that you did and remember only the bad.

It was in “Julius Caesar” that Shakespeare wrote, “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft-interred with their bones.”

But in the letter of Soter Tusalem, he would translate what Caesar said to Brutus in Tagalog, “Ito Brutus. Kayo pala.”

Caesar was a great achiever. He made Rome the center of civilization, conquered Britain, subdued the Gauls, conquered Egypt and even had a son by Cleopatra, Caesarion. He expanded the Roman empire.

But these were forgotten.

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Now to go back to mediation. We should be proud Bacolod is not only No. 1 in the percentage of settled cases. It is also number one in terms of cases handled. Media support made people accept it.

I had a good talk with Justice Ponferada, an old friend, who insisted to include Bacolod as a pilot area for mediation. And also with Atty. Andrew Ong. In other areas, I believe it was not well publicized.

Bacolod and Negros Occidental scored 68 percent cases settled, 753 out of 1,107 cases. This covers only the period of January to December 2007.

No. 2 was Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro. It scored 46 percent with 266 out of 606 cases settled.

No. 3 was La Union and the city of San Fernando with 38 percent or 83 cases out of 214. Fourth was Pampanga and the city of San Fernando scoring 30 percent with 258 out of 998 cases settled.

And at the tailend was Benguet and Baguio with 28 percent or 300 cases settled out of 1,057. Their mediators lack the training.

In the total number of cases handled, Benguet and Baguio was No. 2 with 1,057 cases handled. In terms of settlement of cases, it is No. 5, the last.

No. 1, still, is Negros Occidental and Bacolod with 1,107 handled and No. 1 in terms of output with 68 percent. Third is Pampanga and San Fernando with a total of 998 cases, fourth is Misamis Oriental and Cagayan de Oro with 606 cases handled and the last is La Union and San Fernando with only 214 cases handled.

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Ponferada and Ong said they attribute the success of the Bacolod mediation to the cooperation between the court and the mediation center. In other places I believe they did not get media support.

They also said, our mediators here are more dedicated. And also the cooperation of the local government units.

To us and other professionals, some are retired judges and even practicing lawyers and executives in private offices we consider mediation as our service to the public.

Management of conflicts is not an easy job. But it is also very rewarding. If I were to narrate the interesting experiences I had in this job, it can reveal the human weakness and peculiarities. One thing I know, it’s difficult to settle quarrels between husband and wife.*

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