Philippine judicial process slow

While the Philippine judicial process has been perceived as moving painfully slow, the wheels of justice turned like a well-oiled machine on Friday. Comelec lawyers brought the criminal information sheet to Clerk of Court Pelicano's office at around 11:22 a.m. and the case was immediately raffled off electronically to Judge Mupas' court. As it turned out, the Pasay RTC was a pilot testing site for the Supreme Court's enhanced case management program, where the raffle of cases and the generation of case numbers are done using computers. The project, which was under the watch of retired Associate Justice Adolfo Azcuna, was also made available in Quezon City and the other cities of Makati, Marikina, Angeles (Pampanga) and Lapu-Lapu (Cebu), according to a poster on Branch 112's office door. Pelicano said Pasay City had jurisdiction over the case because the ballots were brought for counting at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC). Judge Mupas appeared at the courtroom at around 1 p.m. but refused to be interviewed. He allowed reporters to stay in the courtroom and office as he went through the records of the case, which consisted of at least eight black binders as thick as a copy of the telephone directory's Yellow Pages. At around 3 p.m. Mupas directed reporters to leave the courtroom—so he could "concentrate," according to Pelicano. But as the directive was being announced, the Inquirer saw a member of the court staff holding a pad of yellow paper and appearing to be typing something. The staff member gestured to a colleague to ask reporters to leave, saying: "Baka may makabasa nito (Someone might read this)." An hour later, Court Sheriff Ismael Cuerdo casually left the office holding pieces of paper. Asked where he was going and if he held the arrest warrant, he smiled and answered in the affirmative. Cuerdo went to the Pasay City Police's warrants section and had the arrest order received.