Lazatin, and Eduardo Ong. Back, from left: Gwen Garcia, Shirley Alinea, Rogelio Nicandro, Mario Valderrama, Edmund Tan, Roberto Dio,
Ricardo Ongkiko, Patricia Prodigalidad, and Donemark Calimon.
PDRCI gave a fresh mandate to its Board of Trustees and officers and inducted new members at its annual meeting on July 21, 2014 at its office at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City.
The members unanimously re-elected the incumbent trustees to a new term. At the organizational meeting that followed, the Board elected the following officers for the 2014-2015 term: Miguel B. Varela, Chairman; Gregorio S. Navarro, President; Roberto N. Dio, Secretary General; Donemark Joseph L. Calimon, Treasurer; and Patricia-Ann T. Prodigalidad, Corporate Secretary.
Former PDRCI President Victor P. Lazatin was named Vice-Chairman for Internal Affairs; Former PDRCI President Eduardo R. Ceniza, Vice-Chairman for External Affairs; Beda G. Fajardo, Vice-President for Internal Affairs; Salvador S. Panga, Jr., VicePresident for External Affairs; Shirley F. Alinea, Deputy Secretary General; Eduardo G. Ong, Assistant Treasurer; and Ricardo Ma. P. G. Ongkiko, Assistant Corporate Secretary. Former Chief Justice Artemio V. Panganiban was elected Chairman Emeritus and former PDRCI President Custodio O. Parlade, President Emeritus.
The new members of the Executive Committee were of Messrs. Navarro, Lazatin, Dio, Ceniza and Edmundo L. Tan.
On the same occasion, PDRCI welcomed 12 new members, who took their oath before President Navarro. The new members, all members of the Philippine Bar, were:Abraham Rey M. Acosta, Maria Chona P. Balanquit, Manuel M. Cosico, Margarita N. Gutierrez, Donato S. Navarro, Asuncion de Leon Omila, Julius Anthony R. Omila, Esperanza Caridad A. Orig, Jay Patrick R. Santiago, Pedro C. Santizo, Benjamin A. Somera, Jr., and Rio Sesin- ando E. Venturanza.
The ADR Act of 2004: A decade of changes and challenges
In this three-part series, the author looks at the history of the ADR Act of 2004, its implementation, and the challenges facing the Philippines as its grows into a regional arbitration center. Part One covers PDRCI’s role in the law’s enactment.
Ten years ago, the Philippine Congress deemed it was time to update the then 51-yearold Republic Act No. 876 (1953), or the Philippine Arbitration Law, which dealt principally with domestic arbitration.
To recall, on June 10, 1958, the Philippines signed the United Nations Convention on the Recognition and the Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards of 1958, or the New York Convention, which was ratified nine years later in 1965. RA 876, however, was not modified by any law to ensure the Philippines’ compliance with its treaty obligations under the New York Convention.
Recognizing the forces of globalization and the evolving trends in arbitration, Congress shepherded the passage of a consolidated bill to “actively promote party autonomy in the resolution of disputes or the freedom of the parties to make their own arrangements to resolve their disputes” and to “promote the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as an important means to achieve speedy and impartial justice and declog court dockets.”
Conceiving the ADR Act
Dean Custodio O. Parlade, PDRCI President Emeritus, reminisced on the circumstances behind the passage of the ADR Act: “It was sometime late in 2001 or early 2002 when the late [Prof.] Annabelle T. Abaya [spokesperson of former Philippine President Fidel V. Ramos] and Atty. Eduardo [Dindo] S. de los Angeles visited PDRCI with the information that the then House [of Representatives] Speaker, Jose de Venecia, Jr. expressed great interest in pushing through the legislature a comprehensive ADR bill.”
“We were provided with a draft of an ADR bill that contained provisions for mediation, and PDRCI was requested to draft the rest. A group of PDRCI lawyer members helped, principally Victor P. Lazatin, Beda G. Fajardo, Daisy P. Arce, Eliseo Alampay, [and] Salvador S. Panga,” he said.
UNCITRAL Model Law
According to Dean Parlade, PDRCI realized that Ms. Abaya’s and Atty. De los Angeles’s visit was a perfect opportunity to propose the adoption of the UNCITRAL Model Law. “Thus, the initial draft incorporated as part of the bill the model law provisions, but Annabelle suggested that we prune down the provisions because the sponsor would prefer a shorter version. This became a very difficult task because we were loath (a) to adopt only a part of the model law, or (b) abbreviate the model law.”
Dean Parlade added that both alternatives were turned down because it would not serve the Model Law’s purpose. “The Model Law was crafted by experts for a period of three to four years. Tampering with the work of experts is foolhardy,” he said.
Atty. Victor P. Lazatin, who was a PDRCI Trustee at that time, recounted his active lobbying in the Philippine Senate: “With respect to lobbying, I was active in the Senate while Ms. Annabelle T. Abaya was active in the House of the Representatives.”
“I principally advocated the adoption of the UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) Model Law for both international and domestic arbitration. However, I was successful only in convincing the group to adopt the UNCITRAL Model Law for international arbitration. It was argued that local lawyers were already familiar with RA 876 (Arbitration Law),” Atty. Lazatin said. “Thus, under the ADR Act of 2004, we have two regimes—UNCITRAL Model Law for international arbitration and the Arbitration Law for domestic arbitration,” he added.
Atty. Lazatin suggested including in the draft bill a provision adopting the Model Law as the law to govern international arbitration without actually reproducing the entire Model Law in the bill. “It was an excellentsuggestion,” Dean Parlade said.
Atty. Lazatin’s suggestion also begged the question of what to do with RA 876. After deliberation, Congress decided to retain the old law and applied key provisions of the Model Law to RA 876. This is now Section 33 of the ADR Act ,which provides that “[a]rticles 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18 and 19 and 29 to 32 of the Model Law… shall apply to domestic arbitration.”
Mediation
Dean Parlade also remembered the contributions of Prof. Abaya, who passed away in 2012.
“The mediation provisions were drafted by Annabelle. In this, [she] used her expertise in mediation to provide for a law that would guide and govern commercial mediation. The Supreme Court, acting through [then] Assistant Court Administrator Bernardo Ponferrada and others with whom the PDRCI team was in contact, were closely monitoring the developments particularly the changes in the mediation provisions largely because of the concern that they may have an adverse impact on courtannexed mediation.”
Support from PCCI and Congress
The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry supported PDRCI’s efforts. “Miguel Varela, as always, was behind us. At a later stage when there was need to galvanize support from the senators, then PCCI president, Naomi L. Saludo, wrote individual letters to the senators urging support for the measure and encouraged business groups to do likewise,” Dean Parlade said.
Dean Parlade was grateful to former Speaker De Venecia’s support for the then ADR bill. “True to his word, Speaker De Venecia used his office to push the Congressmen to approve the ADR bill in record time,” he said.
He added, however, that it was in the Senate where some delay was encountered. “But through the effort of the then Senate Majority Floor Leader Francis Pangilinan and Senator Joker Arroyo, the ADR bill was passed by the Senate shortly before the Congress adjourned in 2004,” he said.
The consolidated version of Senate Bill No. 2671 and House Bill No. 5654 was signed into law by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on April 2, 2004. Thus, Republic Act No. 9285, or the Alternative Dispute Resolution Act of 2004 (ADR Act), was born.