DOJ’s mediation project gets aid from Asia Foundation

The mediation project of the Department of Justice aimed at declogging court dockets will now be fully implemented nationwide after it received financial support amounting to at least P3 million from The Asia Foundation.

The DOJ represented by acting Justice Secretary Merceditas Gutierrez and Steve Rood, country representative of the foundation, signed yesterday a memorandum of agreement for the funding of the project’s expansion to cover all the courts in the country.

Also present in the MOA signing was Annabelle Abaya, who served as spokeswoman of former President Fidel V. Ramos. Abaya is the head of the Conflict Resolution Group Foundation (CoRe Group) which acts as consultant of The Asia Foundation.

In a statement, Gutierrez said the DOJ decided to launch the national mediation project following the successful pilot operations in 2001 in selected cities in Metro Manila.

During its pilot project in Manila City, Quezon City, Caloocan City and Valenzuela, Gutierrez said 93 percent of the cases mediated were settled and did not reach the courts.

Gutierrez explained that mediation is a process where a trained neutral third party facilitates the voluntary settlement between disputing parties.

The acting secretary urged the public to resort to mediation "because this results in swifter, more satisfying and durable settlements at the fraction of the cost of litigation."

She added that the settlement of cases pending at the DOJ would help relieve the courts’ overcrowded dockets.

The nationwide mediation project will initially cover the areas of Pasig, Rizal, Pasay, Baguio, Cebu and Davao.

Prosecutors and public attorneys will be trained to supervise and mediate disputes that carry a penalty of less than six years.

Abaya, on the other hand, said civil cases such as estafa, bouncing checks, reckless imprudence and other minor offense were among the cases mediated during the pilot project.

She noted that 65 percent of the bouncing check cases that go up to the courts come from the DOJ.

"So if these cases do not go up in the courts anymore then we will experience less declogging in the courts," Abaya said.

In Pasig alone, Abaya said, 170 out or 175 cases mediated were settled.

"We are hopeful that as we go from city to city we will be able to improve even more. That mediation really works and that meditation is going to work much better.

Meanwhile, Rood said aside from the P3 million fund that the foundation is putting for the project, the DOJ will also allot P1 million fund aside from designating full-time mediators, prosecutors and public attorneys to help in the project.

The training of mediators will be supervised by the CoRe Group, which is said to be the most experienced mediation training and research organization in the country.