SPPO Mark Thaddeus B. Tanalgo sent me an invitation to be a resource speaker on mediation. Tanalgo chairs the Negros Island Region’s restorative justice (RJ) committee. RJ is a system of criminal justice that focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large.
I’m always happy to share my experiences in court annexed mediation. In 2012, the Interfaith Centre for Conciliation and Nonviolence tapped me as a trainer for members of the Negros-based Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit as part of their peace-building efforts in the hinterlands.
For several years, the Rotary Club of Bacolod North has been inviting me as guest speaker during its annual youth camps at their El Retiro Nazaret Retreat House. Rotary has been coordinating with accredited Supreme Court mediators to provide these talks on conflict resolution. I alternated with mediator Jose A. Solinap as a resource person.
During this year’s annual partners’ meeting of the Non-Timber Forest Products-Exchange Programme Philippines, I also discussed the principles of mediation work in resolving conflicts among forest conservation stakeholders.
I tapped former presidential adviser on the peace process Annabelle Abaya to provide her best practices on mediation during the e-conference on the Southeast Asian sustainable mountain development I organized in 2011.
Dr. Abaya provided an example of conflict transformation through a negotiated needs-based approach to a controversial Ambuklao-Binga dam in the Cordillera Mountain range. Or how to transform enemies into allies.
The Philippines scored a first as the United Nations celebrated its successful experience in resolving conflict using a mediated dialog process.
A Harvard team from its Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government visited the Philippines with a crew of American and British film producers to document this extraordinary process. It aims to offer viewers real and compelling insights into the potential benefits of dialog and mediation in resolving corporate-community disputes.
And now near the end of 2016, it’s my pleasure and privilege to share my knowledge and firsthand experience to other branches of the Philippine justice system in the region. Our justice system has five pillars: law enforcement, prosecution, the courts, the penal system, and the community itself.
The five pillars or systems must work in concert with each other with checks and balances between them in order to best serve the public. Criticism of the Filipino legal system often centers around issues of disconnect. With the invitation, the branches are getting their acts together.
This connection supports RA 9285 (the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act) declaring it a state policy to actively promote party autonomy where parties-in-conflict has the freedom of the party to make their own arrangements to resolve their disputes, attain speedy and impartial justice and declog court dockets. Connect pa more!