PDRCI will join the panel discussion “Where do I arbitrate? Pros and Cons of Various Arbitration Institutions” at the 2015 In-House Congress to be held at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel on July 8, 2015.
The panel discussion (Practice Area Workshop A) aims to address how to select an international arbitration institution and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Representatives from Hong Kong International Arbitration Center (HKIAC), International Chamber of CommerceAsia International Court of Arbitration (ICC-Asia), Kuala Lumpur Regional Center for Arbitration (KLRCA), Singapore International Arbitration Center (SIAC), and PDRCI will be part of the panel. PDRCI will be represented by its Secretary General, Atty. Roberto N. Dio.
The In-House Congress circuit, which is now on its 17th year, is the largest series of annual gatherings specifically for in-house lawyers along the New Silk Road and has become a regular fixture on the corporate counsel calendar across Asia. This year’s Congress will bring together leading in-house lawyers, compliance professionals and senior business executives from both the private and public sectors in the Philippines.
Travails of a court-annexed Mediator
Part I discusses the background of court-annexed mediation in the Philippines and a typical day in the life of a mediator, including pre-mediation preparations.
Background Court-annexed mediation (CAM) started in 2001 as a priority project of the Philippine Supreme Court to unclog case dockets, particularly in the trial courts. The responsibility to supervise its implementation was delegated to the Philippine Judicial Academy (PHILJA), which became a component unit of the Supreme Court in CAM and other alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes.
I was among the pioneer batch of trainees who were accredited as a mediator by the Supreme Court in 2002. In the same year, I was hired by the Philippine Mediation Foundation, Inc. (PMFI) as its Executive Director to assist PHILJA in the implementation of CAM, particularly in the establishment of Philippine Mediation Center (PMC) units and supervision of almost 200 CAM mediators in Metro Manila.
In 2008, I was engaged by the Philippine Mediation Center Office (PMCO) of PHILJA as a Consultant (Mediation Adviser) to coordinate the establishment of PMC units in the Visayas and Mindanao and the conduct of Settlement Week in those areas.
I share my experiences when I was an accredited court-annexed mediator from 2002 to 2012, when my accreditation expired, and as former Executive Director of the Philippine Mediation Foundation, Inc. (PMFI), a non-government organization headed by Atty. Eduardo de los Angeles as President. I hope that the current CAM mediators may learn from my experience to effectively perform their role in assisting the parties resolve their disputes.
I believe that the experiences I share in this article will help disputants better understand mediation and make the process work in resolving disputes. I said “resolving disputes” because mediation is not about winning as in a zero-sum game; it is more about restoring the relationship between the parties in the dispute. In mediation, the lawyers’ role changes from litigators to problem-solvers who help clients resolve their differences.
Pre-mediation preparations
My preparation as a mediator starts before I go to sleep the night before and up to the time of my waking up in the morning of the following day. This basically involves the conditioning of my mind about the process and imagining my role in each stage of the mediation. My morning prayers would always include asking the Almighty to make me an instrument to promote His peace to whoever would entrust their case to me.
hese helped build my confidence to effectively perform my role as a mediator and thus effectively assist the parties resolve their disputes.
However, I was not always selected as a mediator everyday. While the parties had the power to select and agree on the mediator, the mediators in each PMC Unit adopted an informal but more equitable way of mediator selection, depending on the unique circumstances obtaining in the PMC Unit where they volunteered to mediate (e.g., first-come, first-served basis).
A day at the PMc unit
The PMC Unit is the venue where mediatable cases are referred by the courts for mediation. There are 17 PMC Units in Metro Manila, one in each city. The PMCO assigns a court-annexed mediator to a PMC Unit where he or she initially volunteers. Depending on the need of a particular PMC Unit, the PMCO may assign a court-annexed mediator to two PMC Units.
Once, when I was a Mediation Supervisor, I was sued by a mediator for loss of income after I disallowed him from handling cases. This happened after I asked the PMC Unit Coordinator not to assign cases to this mediator because of his misconduct in soliciting cases from parties. The complaint was eventually endorsed by the court to PHILJA for proper disposition.
In the early years of the CAM project, the mediators were practically on their own to man the so-called “PMC Units” because no tangible PMC Unit then existed. Mediators were left alone to find a space along the corridors of a Hall of Justice, sometimes near the restrooms where a cigarette vendor allowed them to use his dilapidated wooden bench. In one city north of Manila, settlement agreements were prepared on the borrowed typewriter of a court clerk. Mediators would sometimes bring their laptop computers to prepare documents required during and after the mediation.
Mediators in another city pooled their own funds to buy a new air-conditioning unit to cool their office during the hot summer.
The establishment of the Mediation Fund by the Supreme Court pursuant to A.M. No. 04-2-04-SC, which took effect on August 16, 2004, provided the muchneeded impetus to keep mediation going not only in Metro Manila but throughout the country. The Fund paid for the setting up and operation of PMC Units, including the hiring of one to three staff to provide clerical and administrative support to mediators.
As the Mediation Fund grew, the problem of lack of physical office space for the PMC Units in the Hall of Justice, lack of office supplies and equipment, etc. during the early days of CAM was addressed. To this day, however, I continue to receive text messages from mediators from PMC Units in the provinces complaining of inadequate office supplies and equipment.