Legal Services Still Elusive for Poor Filipinos Despite Reform Attempts

With congested court dockets and limited public defenders, there is an undeniable disparity of how justice is served for the rich and the poor, despite the promised equality of the law.

Virgie’s* firstborn, Jun, was 24 when he was arrested for illegal possession of drugs. It was in 2017, almost a year after then President Rodrigo Duterte assumed office with his anti-drug campaign in full swing. With only little money to their name, she could not afford proper legal assistance for her child who only wanted to help a friend pay their hospital bills

It took five years before Jun was released on bail despite internal court rules that mandate drug cases be resolved within 75 working days.

“Yung kaibigan niya kasi may sakit ang asawa, kaya naisipan nilang magbenta,” she said. “Pero mabait ang anak ko. Madali kasing isipin na kapag nagnakaw ka, o pumatay ka ng tao, masama ka na agad. Hindi ganun si Jun. Mali man ang ginawa niya, pero hindi niya intensyong manakit ng ibang tao.”

Virgie brought the case to a Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) in Nueva Ecija, she was advised to urge Jun to accept a plea bargain. With the offer, she believed that her son could get a shorter sentence of a minimum of five years in prison. But without it, the case would go through a full-blown trial: Jun could either be acquitted or convicted up to 20 years in prison, according to the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

“Sabi ng PAO, yun na raw ang pinakapwede sa kanya. Kaso kasi, kilala ko ang anak ko, hindi naman siya masamang tao. Paano na lang kung paglabas niya, mabago siya ng preso?” She told through tears.

On average, the 2,400 public defenders of PAO have to juggle 816,000 cases nationwide per year. The volume of cases taken by every PAO lawyer is too much for the attorney to handle with zeal. Combine this with sluggish trials in courts, less fortunate defendants’ avenue for justice becomes more elusive.

Clogged Dockets

The 1987 Constitution mandates the state to provide indigent accused of free legal counsel. Defendants are also ensured of having a speedy and impartial public trial. It was to fulfill this constitutional promise that the PAO was established.

PAO, an agency under the Department of Justice, was first established in 1987 to provide free access to courts and legal representation for indigent clients. It was amended by Republic Act (RA) 9406 in 2007, renaming the agency and making it an independent body, with stronger autonomy and increased compensation for public attorneys.

It is also through RA 9406 that mandated one public lawyer for each courtroom. However, due to the influx of cases, even the courts are forced to adjust trials to maximize the working calendar dates, forcing PAO lawyers to handle multiple cases simultaneously.

“Right now, kahit papaano, it’s manageable. But it’s really more than what it should be,” said PAO lawyer Maria Joy Karen Adraneda-Filio, who has been with the agency for a decade. “Kasi PAO does not only handle criminal or civil, [but] we also take cases [from] quasi-judicial agencies. Tapos, we accept walk-in clients pa.” Quasi-judicial bodies are agencies that are not under the judiciary but are authorized to interpret the laws such as the National Labor Relations Commission.

On average, a public lawyer will handle 340 cases per year, Adraneda-Filio said. These cases include lengthy readings, research, paralegals, negotiations, court adjustments, and client interactions. The amount of time spent per case proves to be burdensome.

Worse, because of the snail-paced judicial system, there is a bottleneck in the court system itself, delaying the delivery of decisions.

“Sometimes, 90 days [of a trial] become two to three years because mabagal ang bureaucracy, so we have to work quickly and smartly,” Adraneda-Filio said.

Jun’s drug case was delayed several times because of the large docket size. And the more that his case was being drawn-out, the more it became expensive for Virgie who had to pay for court appearances and visits to Jun, who was detained two cities away from where they live.

Lagging Processes

There is a problem with the country’s judicial system because of unobserved rules, said human rights lawyer and National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) President Ephraim Cortez. One of the high court’s attempts to decongest dockets was the 75-day rule which entails that criminal proceedings must have a final and executory decision on the 75th working day since it was first convened.

“The most violated right is the right to speedy trial,” Cortez said. “The courts grind slowly, it takes years. If you’re a detainee, you wait for so long before [you receive] a decision.”

In 2006, the Supreme Court laid out the One-Day Witness Examination Rule which states that a witness must be fully examined within the day. In 2012, the Supreme Court applied the Judicial Affidavit Rule where live witness testimonies will be replaced by sworn statements that will be submitted and reviewed by both parties and the judge.

However, these rules, in practice, are not strictly enforced in regular proceedings but used in special and high-profile cases only, Cortez noted.

“The court should strictly abide by their own rules. Tingnan mo yung Remulla case. O, kaya naman pala [na mabilis],” he said, referring to the drug raps filed against the son of Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla III that only lasted for three months. Meanwhile, 69.47 percent of criminal cases do not follow the 75-day ruling guidelines of the Supreme Court, an assessment by Vera Files revealed. Some cases’ bail hearings even get postponed for a year.

Judges maintain the vital role in hastening proceedings since they control how the trial would flow, and how the court’s clerks manage the efficiency of time per hearing, said Mark Jason Aludino from the University of Asia and the Pacific School of Law and Governance in a 2018 study.

Once, Virgie said, Jun was ready to face a bail hearing but was cut off by the judge, delaying the case for another month.

“Bigla kaming pinauwi [ng judge] kasi suspended na raw ang trabaho ng araw na yun, pero syempre babayaran ko pa rin appearance ng abogado,” Virgie recounted.

Beyond the Bench

The delays brought by the courts and limited resources also delay the delivery of justice, often at the expense of the accused.

“May PAO [dapat] per sala pero maraming kaso tapos kaunti ang PAO lawyers,” Cortez said. “If you’re representing 10 clients in one hearing, then ilan ang pwede mong gugulin para lang magkaroon ng maayos na trial?”

He said that only about 2 to 3 percent of lawyers are engaged in pro bono services while the rest are in mainstream and corporate practices. Along with this, around 90 percent of the population have no means to pay for private lawyers and must share the time of public defenders. Virgie, who opted to hire a private lawyer instead of plea bargaining as suggested by a PAO lawyer, had to borrow a total of P25,000 for legal expenses.

Those who offer free legal services are also often vilified by the government. In 2020, then Southern Luzon Command Chief Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade claimed, without basis, that NUPL is secretly funded by the Communist Party of the Philippines to handle cases filed against its supposed members. While Cortez does not deny handling cases related to the peace process, he said that these allegations are baseless and drive away other lawyers who are interested in pro bono services because of fear of being red-tagged.

For Adraneda-Filio, while the delays are burdensome, PAO relies on its employees’ competence to make sure that the litigation is as quick and efficient as possible. She added that there is a pressing need for free legal education to ensure that citizens know their rights and other measurements the state entitles them to.

To solve the congestion problem, multiple reforms have been laid out by the Supreme Court. In 2014, Department of Justice and the Department of Interior and Local Government, along with the judiciary, launched electronic subpoenas which then Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno believed would ease the delays caused by witness’ nonappearance. In the same year, she also asked Congress to increase the judiciary’s budget to implement the “continuous trial system” that is now in effect.

But despite attempts on reforms, a 2022 global study by the World Justice Project gave the Philippines a 0.47 out of 1.00 overall score in terms of the rule of law. From being placed 51st out of 140 countries on the rule of law index, the country’s rank declined to 97th following low ratings in civil and criminal justice accessibility.

“Totoo talaga na kapag mayaman ka, mas mabilis gumulong ang batas. Kasi may pera sila eh, ang kaso madaming mahihirap, e ‘di marami ring hindi makakuha ng hustisya,” Virgie lamented.

It has been a few months since Jun was released after being acquitted, and yet Virgie said that her son suffered so much that she fears there has been a permanent damage on Jun who has been experiencing persistent nightmares and visible emotional instability. After all, Jun lost five years worth of life.

“Minsan iniisip ko, kung may pera sana ako noon para mailabas ko siya agad, hindi sana ganito ang nangyayari sa anak ko,“ she said. “Ang sakit.”

*Not her real name. Identities were withheld due to the sensitive nature of the case.

Daniel Sebastianne Daiz