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Speech delivered by Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno during the Philippine Women Judges Association (PWJA) 21st Annual Convention-Seminar on March 10, 2016 at the Manila Hotel

Thank you very much, friends. Please relax and let’s all take our seats.

Thank you very much, Judge [Maria Zenaida Bernadette Tamayo-] Mendiola

for your just appropriate introduction, I like it that way, short but sweet and

to the point.

So allow me first to acknowledge the presiding officer for this

convention, the President of the Philippine Women Judges Association

(PWJA), [Supreme Court] Associate Justice Teresita J. Leonardo-De Castro,

whom former President and Mayor Joseph Estrada regards with so much

appreciation, thank you very much. And I personally appreciate very much the

work of Justice De Castro and as I have told you, since I first delivered my

speech before the PWJA in Leyte. I believe that she has the energy to lead the

PWJA and that I think that we, because it was the night before the Leyte

speech before I became a card-carrying member of the PWJA, we lead the

PWJA into greater heights. And true to all expectations, she has exceeded and

done much more. So I think we owe another round of congratulatory applause

to your President of the Women Judges Association and the outgoing

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President of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ).

Congratulations!

I’d also like to acknowledge my colleague, Justice Francis Jardeleza.

Indeed according to Justice De Castro, he is the best-looking male in the room.

And I said, “You see, I saw him when he was younger.” And indeed that is

really true.

And President Mayor Joseph Estrada — you know I have sat beside him

at state functions I think twice already and I can attest to the fact that he has

stories he has regaled his seatmates with on how women should be loved. I

remember that I was just so distracted during a state dinner. I could not forget

his stories. And half of my brain wanted to believe that he was as ardent as he

was telling me on how love is to be played out; on the other half, I thought he

was just making up stories for good humor and to show how witty our former

President is. So Mr. President, you have left such an indelible impression on

me until I think my dying days I will always be puzzled or I will always be

mystified whether your stories were true or not. So thank you for enriching

our lives with your stories.

Now in recognition of the fact that Mayor Estrada has followed up with

me the matter of the Manila Hall of Justice twice, I am committing to you

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Mayor Estrada as I had publicly committed before, that one of my key

objectives is to finally build that Manila Hall of Justice. I don’t know, there are

many stories that there have already been seven groundbreaking occasions,

or eleven, I do not know how many times before I came in. But to show you

how serious we are, the Court has already spent money in awarding contracts

for the terms of reference for the Detailed Architectural and Engineering

Design (DAED) of the Manila Hall of Justice to be done. And I am committing to

you, our Assistant Court Administrator, the Chief of the Public Information

Office, Atty. [Theodore O. “Ted”] Te, will put a micro site — is this correct Ted?

That is why I had to call him up to the stage, I had to warn him that I am

committing him to something — he will put up a microsite on the progress of

the Manila Hall of Justice construction. So you can track the progress, you will

know the timeline — Ted, the timeline even for the awarding so that they will

know that it is now at the designing stage. And the projection of the team is

basically the construction itself will not take longer that two years, but I think

that within this year we are already going to receive the design itself. And I

think you have cleared it already with [Atty. Maria Regina Adoracion Filomena

M.] “Gina” Ignacio [Office of the Court Administrator (OCA) Chief, Halls of

Justice], and she is committed to being fully transparent with you, even the

awards, all of those contract awards are anyway in our website. All of the calls

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for bidding are all in our website. We do not hide anything. The judiciary has

an internal FOI (Freedom of Information) policy. So this is something that we

would like to commit publicly to Mr. Mayor so that you will not regret having

supported the PWJA for many times and for supporting our judges also and

the Security for the annual Bar examinations that have been conducted. I

thank you because your support has been critical to maintaining the peace

and order of the premises. So we acknowledge how in fact the relationship

between your city government, our judges, and the judiciary as a whole can

really be seen concretely.

So at the outset, let me then also recognize in the audience the following,

we have of course, in the stage with me is the Executive Vice President of the

PWJA, [Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) Associate] Justice [Amelia C.] Manalastas.

Let’s give her a round of applause. I think many of you know that she will be

capping her role in the judiciary this year with her impending retirement. And

I hope whoever takes her place will also be female, isn’t that good? So our

judges from the RTC (Regional Trial Court)-level, note that there is soon going

to be a vacancy in the Court of Tax Appeals.

So at the outset I’d like to also acknowledge the presence of the

Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeals (CA), Justice Andres Reyes, [Jr.], an

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honorary woman (crowd laughs), for all his support for all the projects of the

PWJA, for having actually acceded to the wishes of the Senior Associate Justice

of the Court of Appeals, [Remedios Salazar-]Fernando. For having had such a

fantastic relationship [with Justice Fernando], and whenever I ask for a

representative to some of our most critical judicial reform programs, you send

me [Justice Fernando]. And her accomplishment in all the committees to

which she has been appointed has been outstanding, I can tell you that, she is

professional to the core.

I’d also like to acknowledge of course our [Former Supreme Court

Associate] Justice Adolf Azcuna, the Chancellor of the Philippine Judicial

Academy (PHILJA), who has recruited more and more women lecturers to the

Philippine Judicial Academy. I thank him for being very sensitive to the needs

even of those who have strong religious beliefs because he even had a

meditation prayer room in the PHILJA Training Center (PTC). So I thank you

for that and for leading the way in the International Organizations for Judicial

Training and all other organizations for mediation in the Asia-Pacific region,

for being a leading light.

And I thank the Court Administrator [Jose Midas P. Marquez] also, also

another honorary woman, I don’t want him to—okay no, I will stop because

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you know there are always very good stories about our Court Administrator.

And I thank him for his support to our women judges. Please give him a round

of applause also.

To the incumbent [women] Justices of the Court of Appeals, 35% of

whom comprise the entire membership of the Court of Appeals. And I hope

that number will increase in the future. So we have one vacancy in the Court of

Appeals this year, the vacancy to be left by Justice Agnes Reyes Carpio. So our

female judges, please do not forget to file your applications.

Also the incumbent Justices of the Sandiganbayan who are here, Justice

[Ma. Theresa V. Mendoza-] Arcega. And for the Sandiganbayan, 47% of them

are female and I hope that this number increases. And their Presiding Justice

[Amparo Cabotaje-Tang] of course is also female and a member of the PWJA.

But the best and most impressive number comes from the Court of Tax

Appeals where they dominate the males. The Justices of the Court of Tax

Appeals, please rise; 55% of them, five out of nine are women.

And for the Sandiganbayan, there are [three] vacancies that are coming

this year —three: Justices [Teresita V.] Díaz-Baldos, Jose Hernandez, and

[Napoleon E.] Inoturan. So there are three vacancies. So for the tertiary courts,

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female judges you know in the JBC (Judicial and Bar Council) we really look

around for the best, and usually we find the best among the women.

So the RTC, the judges from the RTCs, the Metropolitan Trial Courts

(MeTC), the Municipal Trial Circuit Courts (MTCC), the Municipal Trial Courts

(MTC), the Sharia District Courts (SDC) — of course we do not have a female

judge among the SDCs — the Sharia District Circuit Courts (SDCC).

Friends, guests, members of the media, good morning. Allow me to first

greet all of you, my sisters in the judiciary, happy Women’s Role in History

month! Ang agenda ni Juana, ang pakanan ni Juana, huwag kalimutan sa

agenda, but we’ve always always been sensitive to that. It is not just a term of

endearment but sisters, I’ve been using the term “sisters” because I am your

card-carrying member. And my goal this morning is to share with you some of

the ideas of the role of women magistrates in adjudicating with gender

perspective and to energize you with relevant updates on judicial reforms in

the Philippines. Now of course if it’s going to be a talk on judicial reform, it will

take us two hours but I’ll just pick only a few of them. My hope is that the

reforms that we have been undertaking will enable all of us, as women, to

achieve more in dispensing justice while not forgetting the gender

perspective.

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We are now in the month of March, an auspicious month for us women.

And as we celebrate this month, I recall to mind what our past president and

the retired Supreme Court Justice, the late Carolina Griño-Aquino said, it has

been a long, hard climb as the history of women in the legal profession proves.

And so over many decades we women in the judiciary, however, have slowly

but surely managed a foothold in an arena once dominated by men. Note that

of all the professions, it has been the judiciary where it was thought that men

will dominate for the longest time. Such a position now of near parity with

men in the judiciary had been hard won and we pay our respect to all those

who had come before us, the hardworking women, who never failed to

dispense justice rightly; and thus earning the respect of the people and their

trust that in fact women judges very probably will make very good judges.

So we have helped redefine women’s leadership, women’s capacities,

and we have been able to challenge the prevailing culture and mentality

towards women leaders. If you have not yet noticed — and Justice De Castro

started with the statistics on how many of the women have been just recently

appointed from all the judicial positions in the lower courts and in the

Sandiganbayan — but the statistics for women joining the judiciary is on an

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upward trend. The latest available data as of December 31, 2015 shows that

as a matter of proportion:

39%of RTC judges are women, so we have a 10% gap but I’m sure we

can make up for it in a few years time.

54% of MeTC judges are women, so we already dominate the men.

52% of MTCC judges are women;

47% of MTC judges are women;

We don’t have a Sharia District Court judge who is female — we have to

address that.

We have only 11% for Sharia Circuit Courts.

35% for the Court of Appeals — so we have to look at that also.

47% of the Sandiganbayan, and

55% for the Court of Tax Appeals.

Now that is why I have used the term “near parity” because if my

commitment to you that I am going to really push for a merit based promotion

system, you can look at the number of women in the first-level courts and look

at them as the potential occupants of the second-level trial courts and as

potential applicants to the tertiary-level courts. So that the time may come

actually that there needs to be formed a Philippine Male Judges Association, if

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they don’t watch out — so maybe Justice Jardeleza together with PJ (Presiding

Justice) Andres Reyes.

While in the Supreme Court only three of us or 20% are female, I tell

you, on a match basis, we do not ever allow ourselves to be outwitted or

outmatched by any male.

So this is the highest statistic so far that is favorable to women and to

show that worldwide we are leading all judiciaries in terms of female

representation. And ten years ago, please remember that females only

occupied 30% of all judicial slots. So we have already progressed very highly,

by more than 10% for all judicial positions. And please remember that it has

actually been a little less than a century considering the long existence of

humans on the planet where women have been permitted to serve societies as

lawyers and judges.

But we have been one of the earliest judiciaries to actually acknowledge

the strength of women with appointment in the 1920s of female judges. Today

there are still some places in the world where women cannot become judges

or are unable to become judges. And women judges seem universally to have a

continuous struggle to attain equality and parity within their professions and

societies.

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Philippine statistics is an undeniable mark of the country’s commitment

to deliver justice that is genuinely responsive to all. And this same kind of

commitment is pivotal in transforming the judiciary today because remember

statistics without substance in terms of delivering justice is actually nothing.

So our objective is not only to increase the number of women judges in the

bench — good women judges because remember that every scandal involving

a female judge is a black mark on us. Paragraph 10 of General

Recommendation No. 25 of CEDAW (UN Committee on the Elimination of

Discrimination Against Women) is reminiscent of this point:

10. The position of women will not be improved as long as the underlying causes of discrimination against women, and of their inequality, are not effectively addressed. The lives of women and men must be considered in a contextual way, and measures adopted towards a real transformation of opportunities, institutions and systems so that they are no longer grounded in historically determined male paradigms of power and life patterns.

In other words, I think that CEDAW General Recommendation No. 25 is

actually a call for us Philippine women judges to communicate how we were

able to cope with the struggle for female parity in our profession, specifically

in the judiciary, and how we will be able to get to this point of near parity. In

other words I think that while the universal story of women still leaves much

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to be desired, our gains here in the Philippines is a story in itself. And while

we internally enjoy telling stories to each other, it has been in the

international front that we are lacking in our ability to translate the story of

Juana the Huwes. In other words, what is the story of the female judge? Did not

many of us have to carry double burdens — running a household while

running a court, adopting one’s family, not only the biological family but

treating everybody in the courtroom as a family member and attending to the

problem even of the messenger as if it is the problem of a child — did we not

approach it that way? Did we not always have to rush from one place to

another, and some of us have to even rush every time there is the examination

period for our children so that we could tutor them. So whenever we lie down

on our beds at night, we would be very very exhausted. But in the morning we

would find the strength to get up again and with much energy, lead whether it

is in trying to help nurture our children to be responsible citizens or in

dispensing justice and leading the courtroom in the way it is managed. We

have done this with our many, many burdens.

Now in Vienna last year, October, when I was asked, I was one of the

guests in a panel on judicial corruption, and you know I said there is a story in

the Philippines: there is a perception that women judges are more impervious

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to bribery because right after they finish their work in the courts they run

home. Either they go immediately to their households or sometimes they go to

community areas such as churches to be involved in activities there. On the

other hand, the stories that there are still significant sectors of the male

population who would rather spend their after office hours in an

entertainment locale — and there is where the permeability to corruption is

engendered. And I got such an outstanding applause because I said all the

survey forms that the International Bar Association (IBA) have been

distributing are deficient because they have not been measuring whether

gender affects the problem of corruption because I said that maybe there will

be sufficient data that we can turn out to show that gender has an effect on

corruption data. Do you think that we should already look at that aspect?

(Crowd answers yes) You know the repose to that proposal they were saying

that the developed countries like in England, it is inconceivable for corruption

even among the male population of judges to be considered. So I said, maybe

the stage of economic development and Rule of Law development has to do

with it. Can there be a study on whether in developing countries the best

formula would be women empowerment? And I got such a response from the

IBA delegates that now I think some are trying to look at that. But I hope that

if we can be the ones, the PWJA, can lead the research on this: does it [have]

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something to do with our functional roles? Does it have something to do with

the way we are spending our time? Does it have something to do with the fact

that we carry so much burdens, that there is this perception?

I am not saying that gender alone determines the contour because an

honest male judge is an honest male judge in the same way that a dishonest

female judge is a dishonest judge by any measure. But is there a probability

that we can look more intensely at the activities and expectations of society

that creates this perception that judges from the female ranks are performing

very well, that is why more and more of them are being nominated by the JBC

and more and more of them are in turn being appointed by the President. I

think we should look at the baseline data on that.

I believe that women judges bring to the bench a perspective that allows

for holistic decision-making and the crafting of more inclusive policies. When I

was interviewed for the Chief Justice position, I was asked: what do you think

you can bring to the debate on judicial reform. And I thought that one strength

that I have is that because I have held so many management positions, so

many leadership positions in many institutions, and I am female, my first

instinct is to look at the problem from a holistic perspective, and I try to be

consultative and as inclusive as possible, and I am patient in doing so. And I

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think most of you will agree that we are more patient in listening to as many

perspectives than we see among our male counterparts. And we are not afraid

of confronting even emotionally-charged situations — a situation that often

finds its way in our courtrooms when there are conflicts among our

personnel. Is that not correct? That is why also I think it is the Philippine

Judiciary that has been the most successful — and I want Justice Azcuna to

inform me if I am correct in this — in terms of Judicial Dispute Resolution or

JDRs where a judge acts as a mediator, I think you can find that we have a lot

of successes in that point. And I think that that also accounts for the fact that

women judges among Family Court judges are also very good in trying to both

be a judge and are also very good in handling very sensitive counseling

portion of handling family court problems. In fact western courts will be so

amazed at how we’re able to merge the dual roles of being an impartial and

neutral judge and at the same time showing enough sympathy for the

situation of the parties. I think that if there is anything so concrete that you

must document, it is how you women judges have been able to bridge that gap

and merge it into one personality because this is a model that is so unique that

I find in the Philippines and nowhere else. So I am really going to encourage

you to go into more research-based studies to fortify your position as leaders

in the equality sphere.

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May I now call to remembrance the fact that our democracy depends in

large part on us being committed to the principle of equality? Now when we

show that we are not going to allow sexism in the workplace and even in the

relationship among court personnel, we engender a culture that is sensitive to

the social policies that have been drawn not only by our legislators but also by

the Constitution itself.

So we have come to prioritize policy decision in the court that is related

to mainstreaming of gender-related issues. And access to justice is important

and access to justice is historically been denied to the powerless, meaning the

children and of course historically, women. That is why in tandem with the

legislature, we have been sensitizing all our court personnel how to handle

gender issues. And we have come to Congress to ask for the necessary support

for the budget to really actualize Family Courts. Since The Family Courts Act

was passed in 1997, it has only been this year that we have finally been able to

get the budget to organize Family Courts. So the JBC is already prioritizing,

we’ll be making the announcements soon. We will be posting applications for

Family Court judges in the NCJR (National Capital Judicial Region) and in the

nearby regions. So please do not forget the timelines. For the NCR (National

Capital Region), Regions III and IV — together these three regions account for

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52.46% of total child and family cases in the country. So we now have the

budget for 50 Family Court judges and not only for their personnel services

complement but also for the facilities that are required for the creation of a

child-friendly courtroom. So now we will have these 50 courtrooms so let’s

give ourselves a round of applause. We have made so much headway. This is

the first tranche. And now Justice De Castro submitted to the Court the

proposed budget for 2017 and the Court just approved for 2017 the

organization of additional Family Courts. So by 2017 we will have 97 Family

Courts that will be organized so a round of applause again, we are making

headways.

So that I cannot but help congratulate the Committee on Gender

Responsiveness in the judiciary chaired by your President. And this

committee, may I remind you, envisions a judicial system that is sensitive and

responsive to gender equality and empowerment in all its policies, programs,

and activities providing effective, efficient, and accessible justice to all. And I

am happy that it has undertaken many activities foremost of which was the

recently concluded National Summit on Family Courts where it dealt with

among other issues, issues of jurisdiction involving inter-country adoption.

Justice De Castro and her committee will be submitting full reports to the

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Court and will be submitting recommendations on how we can improve our

courts and how we can resolve the problem of jurisdiction that is bedeviling

Family Courts. Just imagine the Family Court in Taguig is handling the case

involving the Zamboanga siege. I don’t know whether we can continue to do

that and with our cybersex problems where we have hundreds of accused and

hundreds and possibly thousands of victims. Unless we are able to resolve the

problem of jurisdiction, our Family Court Judges will simply be too exhausted

to handle huge cases with so many complex issues.

And I thank you, together with the Philippine Judicial Academy, you

have also conducted several sessions on competency enhancement training

for judges, prosecutors, social workers, and law enforcement investigators

handling trafficking in persons cases.

I’d like to announce to the audience that there is so much development

money being offered to us to handle cybersex issues, trafficking issues, and

other related family and child problems. So I don’t think we are lacking in

money for these specialized issues for us to be able to conduct our trainings

and our conference. What we may actually be needing more are warm bodies

and actually the amount of time necessary to face the complex problem of the

Filipino family and the Filipino child.

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Last but not least, the committee has been of course conducting gender

sensitization trainings. And the committee has already distributed survey

forms to judges and you are now going to be able to collate data regarding the

same.

Now you think it is only in the domestic front that we are making

headways, I’d like to tell you that no. On the international front, I am the

present head of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Chief

Justices’ Meeting, and I am the only female. (Crowd applauds) Not only that,

presently I am only one among three Chief Justices of the Asia Pacific Region,

and we continue to meet and I continue to bring the female perspective

among the Chief Justices. Of course in these Chief Justices’ Meetings, they are

not used to having a female Chief Justice among their ranks. They all wear

dark-colored suits, dark blue or black, and I wear female colors, not because I

prefer them as my favorite, but because I want to emphasize to them that we

want to be comfortable with ourselves. So that when we want to wear pink,

they respect that we wear pink even if it’s a very very formal business

meeting. In fact in the International Bar Association Conference in Vienna, I

wore pink and I told them, you know pink is not my favorite color, but I want

you to start being comfortable with this color because we women, we want to

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be comfortable in how we are, correct? (Crowd applauds) I think if refuse to

engage in power play or in brutish or aggressive acts, that’s our call, that’s

how we like to be. And everyone must expect leadership in that form.

So in the international front, the ASEAN Chief Justices are already

talking about cross-border child custody disputes. So I need to alert female

judges that there are more and more foreigners who is a parent of a child and

who is married to a Filipino or a Filipina who wants the Philippine judiciary to

be able to discuss how custody of the children should be handled. And I said

we need to do this with the Filipino diaspora in mind, with the fact that many

of our women had been forced to live abroad to look for economic

opportunities and at the same time, many of them have married a foreigner.

But we want to ensure that internationally, they are protected whether they

want to return to the Philippines for practical or even emotional or

sentimental reasons. Their rights as a parent of a child of a mixed nationality

must be fully respected. So I want you to fully support Justice De Castro in this

endeavor. We must have a very balanced perspective where we will not deny

the child the best interests that international [law] accords to her or to him,

but at the same time we must also be protective of the sense of Filipino family

life. So please support her in this.

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Now before I end and I hope that you had been looking at the literature

that we had been issuing on Continuous Trial, on Automated Hearings, on

Electronic Courts. And in the various regions I have already given you the

timetable. For this year we hope to have laptops distributed to all the NCR

judges, this year and next. We have to have Electronic Courts completed in the

NCR in about two years time. I hope that Automated Hearings will already

start in the NCR and that we will have enough data from the pilot courts on

Continuous Trial to start slowly making it mandatory for courts that do not

have heavily congested dockets. Please, if the PWJA can institutionally link up

with [Atty.] “Teddy” Te. Teddy, where are you? Please make sure that they get

the briefer on judicial reform; that they get in touch with the judicial reform

team, one of which you are a member, as well as the Project Management

Office (PMO), and my office, they will have enough materials so that they can

prepare for the trainings that are going on in larger and larger numbers.

But I want to announce two things. This year, and I have already shared

this with you, we are already going to start a process of downloading of MOOE

(Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses) to the various judicial regions.

Okay, what does it mean? It means that we have started discussing how we

can support some of your activities in the conventions and trainings that you

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attend. (Crowd applauds) There are many options that are on the table, either

the Association formally requests support from the Supreme Court, or the

judges themselves will choose given a particular budget which particular

convention they will allot the budget to. (Crowd applauds) In other words, we

want to cut down the costs related to your meeting each other and hosting

these conventions. If you had noticed the Philippine Judicial Academy has

already been supporting many of your activities, so I thank Justice Azcuna

because I said if we can justify that as part of the training of the judges,

definitely we should support their conventions.

So I have asked the Philippine Judges’ Association and I am going to ask

now the Philippine Women Judges’ Association through Justice “Tess” [De

Castro], kindly meet, and tell you how you want the MOOE to be downloaded.

Should we be giving it directly to the bank account of the judges or should we

be giving it to the Association, and give us an estimate of how much on an

annual basis the judges need to support their expenses for these conventions

because we do not want to add to the operating expenses of the judges. And

we will now be directly supporting the activities of the judges. So you have it.

The second is that we are already discussing, and I have already spoken

with the Philippine Judges’ Association President on this, we want to have

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regional procurement of your office supplies. (Crowd applauds) Just tell us

how it can best be done. So you have to start meeting already because if we

create the administrative mechanisms on our own without consulting you, it

might turn out to be a nightmare for us. So judges, many of you have many

computers, even to the farthest region, I will commit to you that your

equipment will come in the next few years. We hope that in five years time, all

our courts will be on electronic mode.

We are looking very closely at your compensation and your package of

benefits. We have just approved the increase in the support for your medical

health requirements. And we are just committed to ensuring that even your

retirement benefits, your leave benefits, all of these are strongly protected so

that you can just focus in being the excellent judges you can all be.

So my message to you is that just focus on your job. The Supreme Court

has your back and is watching out for all of you. Thank you very much.