Puno cites need to further develop family courts

MANILA, Philippines – Two months before he leaves the Supreme Court (SC), Chief Justice Reynato Puno batted for further development of family courts that handle cases involving women and children.

In his speech opening the National Summit on Family Courts last Friday at the Manila Hotel, Puno said there is a need to fully regularize family courts created over a decade ago and increase awareness of various laws and relief provided for women and children.

Puno cited as one big obstacle in the dispensation of justice for women and children the “delays in the disposition of their cases,” which he said need a harsh look.

He also lamented their usual complaint about the high cost of litigation.

“It is time to review our rule of proceedings, our case law in the best interest of the child, our jurisprudence on discernment, our rule on hearsay testimony, even our law on the age of criminal responsibility,” he said.

Puno believes that bigotry against women and children in the Philippines is not easy to dissolve because it involves “deep-rooted prejudices.”

“They need judges, social workers, prosecutors, defense counsels and police officers who have greater sensitivity to their special status,” he said.

To solve this, Puno said it is also important to apply engaging international human rights norms since the law on women and children is a new developing law.

Puno said the SC has been doing its part to protect the rights of women and children through the use of “live-link” television testimony of child witnesses and creation of rules in examining a child witness, rules on children in conflict with the law, rules on voluntary and involuntary commitment of children, and rules on adoption.

He recalled that the SC also promoted the use of child-sensitive terminology in court proceedings, pioneered the use of child-sensitive measures in and out of the courtroom, ordered strict confidentiality of proceedings and case records, adopted the process of sealing court records upon termination of a case unless ordered opened by the court; and mandated the issuance of court protection orders for children who are primary or secondary victims of family violence, as well as hold departure orders for children who are the subject of custody cases.

Still, Puno believes there is more to be done since cases of violence against women are “nothing less than alarming.”

He cited reports from the United Nations and the National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women showing a total of 67,436 cases reported from 1999 to 2008 and an increase of 21 percent from 2007 to 2008 alone.

Half of the cases involved physical injuries or wife battery. The rest were cases of rape, acts of lasciviousness, sexual harassment, threat, seduction, concubinage, sex trafficking, abduction, and unjust vexation.

Puno also expressed alarm over the increase in cases of child abuse and labor, child abandonment and neglect as well as youthful offenders.

Based on a report of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, 60,000 of the estimated 1.5 million street kids in the country are exploited through prostitution.

The report also estimated about 3,300 new victims of child prostitution each year, and that the number of sexually abused and exploited children doubles each year.

Six laws addressing crimes against women and children have been passed since 1995: the Anti-Sexual Harassment Act of 1995, Anti-Rape Act of 1997, Rape Victims Assistance Act, Act Declaring Unlawful the Matching of Filipino Mail Order Brides to Foreigners, Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003, Anti-Violence Against Women and Their Children Act of 2004, and the Child Protection Act. –Edu Punay (The Philippine Star)