Posted on 08/14/2006 2:33:52 AM PDT by Joseph Reylan B. Viray
A Day With Court Employees Joseph Reylan B. Viray
The Justice Hall of Quezon City was well lighted in that afternoon of Tuesday, December 6, 2005. This was not the first time I visited the place. I frequented the place because one of my former classmates works there. He was working in this branch as a Court Interpreter. However, this was my first deliberate observation visit.
At approximately 9:00 o’clock in the morning, I was already chatting with the court’s employees including my friend. I was asking them questions like: How much workload do they have? What mechanisms do they employ to counter or bear annoying lawyers and a moody judge? and other questions which they gladly answered.
Acting presiding Judge/Executive Judge Hon. Natividad G. Dizon arrived at 1:30 PM while the parties in the case were already waiting. Judge Natividad only presided in acting capacity because of the absence of Presiding Judge Hon. Luisito G. Cortez, who was out on seminar in Tagaytay City. Hon. Dizon was dignifiedly dress and his mere presence changed the mood of the atmosphere from light to tight. Everybody were all suddenly on their toes. Everyone woke up.
After flipping some pages in the records handed to him by the Branch Clerk Atty. Mary Ann Daytia, he indicated to the employees that they should get to work.
The case involved custody and support of a child between a Filipina wife and a Japanese husband. The background of the case is as follows, as narrated to me by my friend who was an interpreter in the said branch: (a). The wife filed a legal separation case against the foreigner husband because allegedly the latter was having illicit sexual relation with the former’s sister; (b). While the case is pending in the same branch, the foreigner husband failed to give the support which he should have provided as ordered by the court; (c) The foreigner husband refused to give the support because according to him the goods and groceries he delivered were consumed not by the child and his wife but by the relatives of the wife. Further, according to him, the child could not have possibly consumed all the goods in just a week’s time.
The hearing started at exactly 2:30 in the afternoon. The counsels for the wife made their formal appearance. The counsel for the husband was not present, the counsel only sent a representative from their firm to move for the postponement of the case. The Judge inquired the reasons for the failure of the counsel on record to appear. The representative said that the counsel was confined at the Makati Medical Hospital for some infections which reason or justification was proved by a certification of the concerned hospital and the physician attending him. The Judge set another date for the hearing. Then another case was called.
I left immediately the branch inasmuch as I have to catch my morning class at PUP College of Arts.
What was the result of the case between a Filipina wife and her Japanese husband?
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