Legalculture
Whether deserved or undeserved, lawyers, like doctors, are treated with respect and presumed to be intelligent and knowledgeable about a whole range of matÂters. Since living in a society calls for complex relationships, the exercise of rights and balancing of interests, the lawyer is placed in an enviable position of power and, as a result, â€?life, liberty and property are thus entrusted into his hands'.107
The public was enthralled by the impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada - the very first ever of a sitting President - which was televised daily with simultaneous annotations by legal experts.
They were awed by the procedure, rituals and the language of the law, prompting one Senator to call it �legal gobbledygook'. For several months this took the place of the longest running, best-loved soap operas.Figures from the Commission on Higher Education show an enrolment of 19 539 in law schools across the country. Of these students, 10 858 are males and 8681 are females.108 Though it remains a popular career, lawyers do not enjoy the trust of many. Abuses by well-known lawyers, best exemplified by the brilliant President Marcos, have led many to grow wary oflawyers. Likewise, on 6 May 1982 outraged citizens demanded the resignation or impeachment of the entire Supreme Court, whose members are appointed by the President. Twelve of the Court's 14 Justices, including the Chief Justice, resigned amid allegations that the Court changed the Bar exam grade of one of the Justice's son so he would not fail.
On 25 January 2005, and on 10 December 2006, Philippines Social Weather Stations released the results of its two surveys on corruption in the judiciary. It
106 Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, �Entering the Legal Profession' (Speech delivered at the 116th Foundation Day of the Philippine Bar Association, 27 April 2007) Personal Website.
107 E Villareal II., op cit., p. 2.
108 Table 5, AcademicYear2004-2005 StatisticalBulletin, CommissiononHigherEducation because they could not prove it.[1225] [1226] The survey likewise showed that the judges referred to were Regional Trial Court judges (17%), Metropolitan Trial Court judges (14%), Court of Appeals Justices (12%), Shari'a Court judges (4%), Sandiganbayan Justices (4%) and Supreme Court Justices (2%).
The September 2008 Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) survey ranked the Philippines sixth (6.10) among corrupt Asianjudicial systems. PERC stated that �despite India and the Philippines being democracies, expatriates did not look favourably on their judicial systems because of corruption.' PERC reported that Hong Kong and Singapore have the best judicial systems in Asia, with Indonesia andVietnam the worst.[1227] In the 2009 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (a global survey ranking countries in terms of perceived corruption), the Philippines dropped ranked 139th, down 12 places from 2007, among 180 countries surveyed. It scored a 2.3 in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), lower than 2007's 2.5, on a scale where 10 is the highest possible grade.[1228]
The distrust in the judicial system is certainly not diminished with the use of English as its official language since it strengthens the perception that the courts are biased in favour of the rich and educated. In all court proceedings, English is used in pleadings, direct and cross-examinations and decisions issued by the courts. This gives rise to an almost surreal court atmosphere where the judge, lawyers, court personnel and the contending parties all speak FilÂipino but translate into English the testimony of witnesses given in the verÂnacular. Innovations introduced by Chief Justice Reynato Puno in 22 August 2007 include the use of Filipino in courts, beginning with three Regional Trial Courts in Bulacan, a province whose native dialect, Tagalog, forms the basis of Pilipino.[1229]
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