Mediation as a way of life - CHASING THE WIND By Felipe B. Miranda

(Conclusion)

Most of the time, the mediator has to be a consummate psychologist – not necessarily a psychiatrist – knowing precisely when to allow a person to unburden himself of his anger or his pain and when to check the same person who might unwittingly cross the threshold of decent public discourse or personal exposure.

If the mediator is able to establish himself or herself as a fair, caring person, then the litigants find it easier to entertain other more rational considerations for reaching a compromise. The parties are more vulnerable to reflecting on the inordinately long process of a judicial trial, the costliness of legal and other incidental fees, the hassle of court appearances and even the sobering prospects of not securing what they had gone to court for at the end of a long and costly trial.

And so, with excellent mediating, what started as apparently irreconcilable interests move closer to each other and soon get close enough to reach to each other. Mediation in these circumstances is a natural mode of conflict defusion among basically decent Filipinos.

Given enough recognition and more substantial institutional support, mediators can help tremendously in decreasing the huge backlog of cases pending before the courts. Furthermore, by making the workload of judges more bearable, mediators can help the latter focus on the truly more demanding, sophisticated court cases. Less harried, more focused, presumably competent judges will make better decisions and the overall quality of administered justice would of course improve.

Mediation is an inspired idea. To date, even with less than ideal resource support, it is already proving its great worth.

Like any good system, it can of course be tremendously improved.

Among the first improvements – in acknowledgment of the critical contributions competent and dedicated mediators can make to judicial administration in this country – is to make mediators not simply uncompensated amicus curiae volunteers, providing critical public service pro bono. Surely, they deserve to be justly compensated, especially those mediators whose own material conditions may not permit donating their public service indefinitely.

Also, with just compensation, mediators can hew better to a code of conduct currently barring them from allowing even appreciative – erstwhile hostile – litigants to treat them to even a simple lunch after a mediation session has successfully concluded.