Christmas and the PMC

Gregorio Miguel Pallugna

IT’S that time of the year again when people tend to contradict their usual selves and become more prone to being kind, understanding and forgiving. People during this season tend to refrain from filing new cases and are more likely to settle disputes rather than fighting it all out. This is both a bad and a good thing. Bad because it means less livelihood for us lawyers, and good because the Court dockets are eased and there is less fighting.

Christmas really does something to many of us and is one of the biggest contributors to unburdening our courts of cases. What most people do not know about though is that there is another thing that perhaps can be considered as the most effective means of preventing people from spending half their lives and possibly half their wealth in fighting cases in court. That is Court Annexed Mediation(CAM) through the Philippine Mediation Center (PMC).

Created by Supreme Court A.M. No. 01-10-5-SC-PHILJA, upon the recommendation of the Phlippine Judicial Academy, the PMC is a government body tasked to facilitate amicable settlements between party-litigants in the pursuit of the state’s policy “to actively promote party autonomy in the resolution of disputes or the freedom of the parties to make their own arrangement to resolve disputes.” In short, it helps prevent very costly litigation between parties by encouraging them to settle the dispute between themselves. It’s almost like Christmas but only, it works throughout the whole year.

The PMC has accredited mediators who zealously assist the parties in trying to find a middle ground where they can meet and finally decide to forego court trial. I have been a witness to this many times where parties to a case sometimes end up crying and hugging each other. Sometimes even the mediator ends up crying too! Many of our cases have been resolved through the PMC and the parties, the courts and even the lawyers are relieved of the tiring proceedings in court.

One case where the PMC in Cagayan de Oro City did its job very well through a motherly mediator named Linda was when very close friends who found themselves in a long-lasting and enraged fight, involving millions of pesos in damages filed against each other, were able to patch things up and finally decide to reconcile and dismiss the cases without a centavo being paid by either party. Of course, we had to skip lunch and endure a five-hour, non-stop mediation conference before the parties were able to finally forgive each other. It is obviously an emotionally draining job, but also a rewarding one.

Those who have found themselves in a full-blown court trial can very well attest that aside from the fact that it is very costly, it is also very mentally and physically exhausting. Some cases last more than decades and sometimes the children even inherit the disputes and fall into the very same trap that their parents have fallen into. It is not at all, easy. Ending it even before trial has begun is already a win-win situation for all parties involved, which all the more makes the job of PMC mediators vital.

Court-annexed mediation has always been a very helpful and effective tool in speedily ending disputes, and the mediators at the PMC deserve to be commended for their wholehearted and tireless efforts to help restore good relations between opposing litigants, or at the very least to prevent them from falling into the dark pit of litigation. Linda, and all the mediators in the Philippine Mediation Center are an all-year, early Christmas blessing to the Judiciary, the lawyers and the parties involved in court cases. We can only hope that they too receive their Christmas bonuses early this year!