Waiting for justice in PH

There is something so terribly wrong with our judicial system that seems to be beyond redemption.  No matter how many circulars the Supreme Court may have churned out to speed up the administration of justice, nothing seems to work. Justice still grinds as slowly as ever.

At the trial level, judges appear so inept it normally takes them years to decide even the simplest cases, where law students might already be able to give the correct answer in just five minutes of class recitation.

At the appellate level, things are much worse. If only some of the litigants cared to line up from Maria Orosa Street, Manila (where the main Court of Appeals sits), to wait for their turn to get judicial relief, the tail of that line would probably be found somewhere at the Welcome Rotonda in Quezon City, moving a foot closer every five years; and at the Supreme Court in Padre Faura, Manila, the tail of the caravan may only be moving an inch closer every 10 years! That’s how bad waiting for justice is in this country.

Parang laging naghihintay ang mga huwes sa may balak na gumapang sa mga kaso. The longer it takes for bribers or influence-peddlers to do their thing, the more cobwebs the cases gather.

Has anyone ever noticed how fast cases get decided if moneyed people and influential lawyers are involved? Everyone wants to retire from the judiciary with very fat accounts!

And the Supreme Court is not free from blame. Not only is it giving a bad example to all lower courts with all its record-breaking and Constitution-defying delays, it also does nothing about aberrations in the proceedings below that tend to erode the people’s faith in its oft-repeated pronouncements of speedy trial and delivery of justice. Instead of sanctioning lazy judges, it shields them from complaints.

My in-laws have endured civil litigation in the trial court that rendered a decision in their favor after more than six years, which was affirmed by the Court of Appeals after eight years, and is now pending in the Supreme Court for 12 years already — and  counting!

My wife’s father, the original plaintiff, had already died of old age. Despite hearing whispers about it, her family never really had the means to make gapang and could only hope for the best.

I suppose my in-laws were just lucky the other party seemed to be in no better position to make gapang either. Thus, things being “equal” in that regard, the case got to be decided on the merits. But in the Supreme Court, it’s anybody’s guess. Is this the “normal” that justice-seeking Filipinos are stuck with?

ULYSSES BERMUDEZ UY, [email protected]