Justice delayed is still justice denied

During my days in law school, we were always reminded of that legal dictum "justice delayed is justice denied," and this is especially true to the justice in the Philippines where lawyers use delaying tactics to stop the courts from proceeding with the trial. This has always been the practice since the days of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos. When then Sen. Ninoy Aquino, Jr. was assassinated, our battle cry was "Justice for Ninoy, Justice for All." Well, after the EDSA revolt, the Aquino family got its reward by replacing the Marcos dictatorship. Two Aquino presidencies later, the Filipino people are still wanting for Justice to happen.

Twenty-eight years later, when one speaks of justice in the Philippines, it is still the same justice as was the justice during the Marcos dictatorship. There's justice for the rich and justice for the poor. Why do you think that there is a rise in summary killings or executions these days? When justice is delayed, it gets so frustrating; people would rather hire a gunman and kill their adversaries. I would like to believe that this is what happened to Atty. Noel Archival.

Speaking of justice delayed, I got this news report that former Rep. Clavel Asas Martinez and her daughter Cielo Martinez were both indicted for graft and malversation charges. This was for the alleged misuse of her pork barrel fund way back in the year 2002. I also learned that the son of Clavel, former Bogo City Mayor Celestino Martinez, III would also be arraigned for the same case.

Just imagine that this case has finally reached this stage in our courts after more than 12 years. When ordinary people look into why this case was so delayed, they can only find one reason, and it is because the Martinez's are powerful politicians. We've already written much about this case, when back in 2004, no less than his eminence Ricardo Cardinal Vidal wrote a letter to the Ombudsman asking why it was taking so long for this case to prosper?

Well, it is finally moving along, but almost at a snail's pace. At this point, it gives the Martinezes a chance to explain their side of the issue. We have seen the paper trail, which is very difficult to refute. So now, let us see how long it will take the courts to hand down a ruling on this case.

*** A Labor Force Survey (LFS) released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) have apparently shown that unemployment in the country has risen to 7.5% or an estimated 2.9 million individuals, with Metro Manila experiencing the highest unemployment rate at 11.2%. This survey did not even include Eastern Visayas; otherwise those figures that the PSA released would have been closer to 10% unemployed.

Again this tells you that no matter how the Aquino regime ballyhoo the economic gains of the Philippines, these have not trickled down to our poor Filipinos. Of course the propagandists of Pres. Aquino tell us that the economic gains of the Philippines was due to the performance of Pres. Aquino. But that is not really true! Mr. Aquino has not done anything drastic in his policies to achieve a greater performance for the Philippines.

What really happened or why is the Philippines faring better than our ASEAN neighbors? For starters, since the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, we went on a belt-tightening program for more than 20 years. Then the 1997 Asian financial crisis hit us badly and the Central Bank forced our banks to tighten rules and all the banks followed. So when the 2008 Economic crisis hit the United States of America, thanks to what happened during the Asian Financial crisis, our banking system was better prepared than most of our neighbors. This is why the Philippines is faring better financially today than our neighbors. But no thanks to Pres. PNoy Aquino.

But in the three years under Pres. Aquino, much of his ballyhooed Private Partnership Programs (PPP), which is mostly for our infrastructure development, never took off. A case in point is the Mactan Cebu International Airport ( MCIA), which until now is still being questioned in Congress. Such infrastructure programs could have resulted in giving jobs to many of our jobless people, but for as long as the Department of Transportation & Communications (DOTC) could not turn those PPP projects into a real construction work, then the jobless numbers will never be reduced.

We know that PNoy was shocked when he learned early in January that there were so many people who were jobless and he ordered the Cabinet Secretaries to fast track their job promotion programs. But then for as long as government bureaucracy in securing business permits make it difficult for business to open up then we will never solve our unemployment problem.