Let's get the wheels of justice moving!

I have always maintained that the key to solving the problems of corruption in this country is as simple as having justice served. If a local town executive or government official was caught misappropriating government funds and in less than six months from the time of the filing of the case the person is put to prison, and more and more corrupt officials follow him to prison, I guarantee you corruption would disappear into the dustbin of history. So there is no question that the application of swift justice is essential in our fight against corruption.

If there was anything we learned from our full week course on Good Governance from the Institute of Corporate Governance (ICD) we took last week, Dr. Cesar Saldaña told us that there was a contract signed by two parties wherein it was stipulated that if there was a problem in the contract that would result in a court litigation, the agreed venue to handle the court litigation was Singapore. This was something that few people know. So you may ask, why Singapore?

Well last Sept. 14, 2008, the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) survey reported that Singapore and Hong Kong have the best judicial system in Asia. While it tagged Vietnam and Indonesia as the worst, the Philippines came after Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, which is not so bad. Malaysia, India, Thailand and China came after us. So this is an area where the Philippines is not the last on the list, but we still need to improve the wheels of justice here because as Dr. Saldaña quipped, “If the criminals love our justice system, isn’t there something wrong?”

Dr. Saldaña was a witness to one such case in Singapore where they had a two-week marathon hearing then judgment was rendered, including the payment of legal fees to the Singapore Court for their role in adjudicating the case. Clearly, what we see here is that good governance in dispensing of Justice creates a huge untapped value for our country. If the Philippines aren’t the choice of multi-national companies as the venue for litigation, it is because we are still woefully short in our dispensation of justice.

The coming of the new Aquino administration who was elected into office with the promise of the eradication of corruption as a means to fight poverty brings hope that he would do his all in making sure that the Filipino people’s cry for justice will finally be heard. When his father and our hero, Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated, our cry was “Justice for Aquino, Justice for All (JAJA)”. So let’s get the wheels of justice moving and on this score, you can say that Ninoy’s fight wasn’t in vain and more importantly, his son gave us the justice we didn’t get in the last two decades.

Still on the issue of justice. I finally got a copy of the Notice of Judgment on the case filed by Francisco Alonso vs. the Cebu Country Club (Alonso questioned the sale of his land in the year 1911 to Country Club because it was not signed by the Secretary of Agriculture and Natural Resources) that started way back in 1992 and finally decided with finality by the Supreme Court only last April 20, 2010. When this issue was in the front pages of the local papers, we wrote extensively about it because unknowingly, it also involved the so-called Banilad Friar Lands, which was a huge area that affected many Cebuano businessmen and residents.

The Cebu Country club won the case in the Regional Trial Court (RTC) and later when it was sent to the Court of Appeals, it also won the case. But on Jan. 31, 2002 the Supreme Court set aside the decision of both the CA and the RTC and declared that Lot No. 727 D-2 of the Banilad Friar Lands covered by Original Certificate of Title Nos. 251, 232, and 253 legally belongs to the government of the Philippines. That decision brought many rumours that perhaps corruption in the judiciary has reached the highest levels because after all, the Philippine government wasn’t a party to the case.

Because the resolution of this case now affected millions of Cebuanos and therefore would result in more court litigations, then Rep. Raul del Mar called for a public hearing and the result of became Republic Act No. 9443 that virtually legalized all titles within the Banilad Friar Lands, after all, there is a law that stated that all Friar Lands should be disposed of and the Cebu Country Club had possession of the property since 1931.

On its final note, the SC signed by Chief Justice Reynato Puno declared, “The Court declares that Cebu Country Club, Inc. is the exclusive owner of Lot no. 727-D2 of the Banilad Friar Lands Estate, as confirmed by Republic Act. No. 9443.” So ends one of Cebu’s more intriguing land cases and thanks to the Supreme Court for justice has truly been served. But alas, there are still hundreds of still unresolved land cases in Cebu and it is hoped that all these cases would be speeded up during the Aquino administration, because the speedy dispensation of justice is a priority in his government.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to vsbobita@mozcom.com or [email protected]. His columns can be accessed through www.philstar.com.