Category Archives: Philippines

September 12, 2010 · 17:00

More money, more money

The Philippine Supreme Court has seen President Aquino’s first budget, and it is upset. The Judiciary seldom gets much more than .8% of the budget. In 2007, the judiciary received only .76% of the national budget, in 2008, .88%, in 2009, .94%, and in 2010, .87%,” the SC lamented. However, according to PhilStar:

Court administrator and SC spokesman Jose Midas Marquez earlier told the House committee on appropriations that they are asking for P27.1 billion, but Malacañang has cut the proposal to only P14.3 billion.

In other words, the current allocation is a mere .78% of the budget. It’s a significant cut for a judicial system that already suffers severe resource constraints. The Supreme Court issued a very strong statement condemning the budget. Here’s a particularly excitable excerpt:

Many of our judges and justices will continue to use their own personal computers and printers, repair their own courtrooms, work on weekends to declog their dockets… But until when can they last? Are we waiting for our justices and judges to march the streets, for the judiciary to revolt, for justice to ground to a halt? Are we courting chaos?

One interesting longer term question is whether this resource crisis will undermine the Philippine Judiciary’s independence. If judges have to beg the administration for more funding, will they be more susceptible to influence. One might think so. However, I personally hope the Philippine Supreme Court has enough of a sense of history to prevent that from happening. Based on Shadow of Doubt, I’m not so sure, but I suspect the Court might become more moderate over the next few years OR become increasingly involved in issues that concern the elites (and thereby building a stronger base of political support). As always with the Philippines, these are interesting times…

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September 9, 2010 · 16:13

Shocking crime stats from Manila

An article in today’s Asia Times mentions a few worrying statistics and trends in the country’s justice system. Here are the highlights, at least related to courts:

In many murder cases across the country, the Supreme Court has ordered trials moved to Manila due to the perceived lack of independence of local courts and judges. 

While Europe convicts about 90% of its murder suspects, and the US approximately 60%, the Philippines conviction rate is less than 10%, according to the European Union’s Philippine Justice Support Program.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Supreme Court also had ulterior motives behind moving murder cases to Manila, such as exercising greater control over these cases and improving its popularity by solving them. Nonetheless, it does dramatically highlight the enforcement gap still so prevalent in the country.

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September 8, 2010 · 16:37

Updates, updates

No, Rule by Hukum is not dead. I’ve merely been busy preparing to begin my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Michigan. Here are two interesting articles from Burma and Philippines:

First, Irrawaddy has an op-ed piece discussing Suu Kyi’s recent lawsuits against the SPDC under the election laws. It’s an intelligent piece that raises several concerns about the litigious approach to political protest in the current context. In particular, it mentions the possibility that the NLD’s lawsuit might get bogged down in court procedure and legalisms, rather than fomenting political change.

Second, I thought readers might be interested in an update from the Philippines, where the biggest justice-related news is the impeachment proceedings against the Ombudsman for allegedly stalling inquiries into Arroyo’s corruption and human rights abuses. The Ombudsman’s case isn’t helped much by the fact that she was a classmate of Mikey Arroyo. However, one of the leaders of the impeachment proceedings has a conflict of interest, notably a case pending before the Ombudsman. It’s one of those exciting soap operas so common amongst the Philippine elite. You can read more here and here.

I probably won’t be making as many posts now that my Ph.D. program has started, but I’ll try to write once a week and share some of the most important legal news from the region. Of course, when I begin my research, I’ll share that as well.

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Filed under Burma, Philippines

August 16, 2010 · 12:58

New Philippine Supreme Court Justice – the leftover one

Unlike the appointment of a Supreme Court chief justice back in the spring, President Aquino appointed Lourdes Aranal-Sereno as the new associate justice without much political hassle or controversy. Her credentials are pretty strong – Sereno received A.B. Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University and received her law degree from UP. Before joining the court, she was Executive Director of the Asian Institute of Management Policy Center and also a faculty member at PHILJA, as well as other institutions. For more details, here is a brief backgrounder on her.  

However, Sereno wasn’t the Judicial and Bar Council’s first choice. The JBC must nominate three candidates for any Supreme Court vacancy, and the president must chose one of those three. However, in this case, Aquino asked the JBC for other names lower down on its list. Sereno was ranked 6th. There’s some speculation that Aquino chose her because she was a friend and classmate at Ateneo, but he denies ever having met her before the appointment. 
I doubt this will amount to much politically for Aquino, but it’s still a slight oddity in otherwise a relatively successful de-thawing of executive-judicial relations.

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August 11, 2010 · 18:54

So much for hegemonic preservation

Earlier this year, when President Arroyo insisted on appointing the new Supreme Court Chief Justice, critics accused her of seeking to stack the judiciary to ensure it would uphold her policies and shield her from accountability. So far, it hasn’t exactly worked out that way. The Supreme Court seems intent on accommodating the new Aquino administration and hasn’t stuck its neck out for Arroyo. According to reports from Manila, it seems like the Supreme Court will not rule Aquino’s Executive Order No. 2 unconstitutional. E.O. No. 2 would sack all of Arroyo’s midnight appointees. We’ll see what happens, but for now the much-anticipated showdown between Aquino and the justices looks a ways off.

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Filed under Aquino, Philippines, Supreme Court