SC 'Justice on Wheels' program goes to Aurora

BALER, Aurora – A 10-year-old attempted homicide case in Dipaculao town has finally been settled, thanks to the Justice on Wheels of the Supreme Court which motored to this town yesterday.

Chief Justice Reynato Puno said that JOW has kept the wheels of justice grinding literally with the mediation of long unsettled disputes and the hearing of long-pending cases.

He cited the case in Dipaculao which finally moved and got resolved after 10 ardous years.”With the Justice on Wheels program, we are able to settle within the day a case which has been there for so many years,” he said.

Puno launched the program early this year to decongest jail facilities in the country and declog the courts of voluminous cases. An airconditioned bus has been turned into a courtroom, and mediation room.

Puno said the JOW has toured various areas in the country, practically bringing justice on the doorsteps of the poor people. He said the program has already reached out to the Visayas, in the provinces of Aklan and Leyte, Cebu and in Davao City, Davao del Sur and Davao del Norte. He added that next week, the JOW will go to Sarangani province.

In this province, the program was launched jointly with the provincial government under Gov. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo and House Deputy Majority Leader Juan Edgardo Angara at the Capitol grounds.

The courtroom was manned by Regional Trial Court Branch 66 and 96 Presiding Judge Evelyn Atienza-Turla and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts Presiding Judge Renato Pinlac.

The mediation room has as mediators Basilio Rupisan Jr., Anna Marie Logar and Ray­mundo Quitlong Jr.

The JOW-Aurora team was composed of lawyers Reynan Dollison, Norma Ferreras, Roly de Castro, Francisco Delgado Jr., Annie Rose Laborte and Cesaer Tito Royeras.

The SC said that at least 21 cases were heard and another 26 cases mediated in yesterday’s launch of the JOW in the province.

Two lawyers from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) also provided free legal counsel and a lecture was conducted by representatives of the Philippine Judicial Academy.

The SC’s committee on the JOW is chaired by Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago while its vice chair is Deputy Court Administrator Nimfa Vilches. Other members of the committee are Assistant Court Administrators Jose Midas Marquez and Thelma Bahia, lawyers Maria Victoria Gleoresty and Fe Aguila and Edilberto Davis.