Manila RTC archives losing battle vs tear, termites and time

(First of two parts)

Fixing his eyes on a spot in the humid, dark room, deep in a corner office at the Manila City Hall, Mang Badong takes deep gasps of air and "dives" deep into the rotting and dust-filled court files piled up to the ceiling.

All the while, he makes sure that he does not get too deep under the mountainous piles or make a wrong move that could send him crashing through the rotting wooden floor, or be buried by a landslide of bundled paper.

But this is Salvador Fueca’s routine in his office–the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) archives – where the "no smoking" sign reigns sovereign, mightier than the Constitution and national statutes.

This, as in many other regional trial courts in Metro Manila — and perhaps the rest of the country – is the state of record keeping, particularly of the older court documents, in our judiciary – dusty, decaying, and practically banished to oblivion.

All these documents, because our courts are the oldest in Asia, and are marking their centenary on June 11; but sadly with hardly any facilities to match the reputation in this modern age.

No place to put them, no way to find them easily.

In the case of the Manila RTC, it has World War II and a 1981 fire to thank for significantly reducing the pile.

"The 1981 fire gutted most of the records, all the docket numbers from 1 to 65,000 were all destroyed," said Mang Badong. What this 64-year-old court sheriff keeps in this room are court records from 1963 up to before the 1981 fire, which were not burned because they were then in his office on the third floor which the fire did not reach.

A separate repository on the fifth floor keeps the more recent files from 1981 to the present. This room, too, is now filled up.

On the fifth floor, however, in the wing of the Manila City Hall opposite Mang Badong’s office, is an even bigger volume of files, stacked up in the corridor left to dry after a recent flood. Strangely, a place as high as the fifth floor of the Manila City Hall is flood-prone, due to its heavily leaking roof.

"We have nine rooms of these files all filled up now. We don’t know where we can put the others anymore," admitted Manila Regional Trial Court’s notary section chief Greg Paraon.

No less than Manila Executive Judge Mario Guarina III attests to the lack of storage space.

"You can put it there (this story), even the executive judge has not enough room for his records," he told The STAR.

Paraon estimates that there are 130,000 bundles of notary documents about 10 times more than what Mang Badong keeps, handled by nine other sheriffs under him.

"Sometimes we are summoned to the courts to attest to some records. If they are lucky, we find and present them. If not, they would have to look somewhere else to prove the authenticity of their documents. But not all our files are useful anymore, many have been ruined by water, dust, termites and rats," he said.

The Manila RTC notary chief, who took over the post in 1999 after starting out as a janitor 30 years ago, said, there were even stories in the past about clerks discovering snakes lurking in the heat-giving bundles of paper.

Still, recovering notary files is a piece of cake compared to what Mang Badong has to go through to find court files.

"Here, when I have some records to locate, I don’t wear a shirt and I schedule it on a Saturday so that I can have the toilet to myself and bathe afterwards," said Mang Badong who, after 32 years of service, will retire next year.

"Nobody wanted this job, they tried giving me assistants but nobody could last. They all complained that the work was tough, dirty, and stinking. In my case I just got used to it," he said.

So who will take over his job? "Well, that’s their problem. I have done my part," said Mang Badong.

Mang Badong’s job is by no means trivial. Every week, litigants come to his office requesting for some records, the past mayors of Manila included.

"That is why they recently installed a phone here so that those from places like Davao and Cebu, who have some records to check, could call first. In the past, many would travel here from the provinces and stay for a week, only for me to tell them that I couldn’t find their requested files," he said.

There are only two reasons why requested records cannot be found – they are either actually lost or, more tragically, lost amid the piles in the room. (To be continued tommorow)