Political Analysis of the Philippines' Katarungang Pambarangay System of Informal Justice Through Mediation

• NCJ Number: 99921
• Journal: Law and Society Review Volume: 19 Issue: 2 Dated: (1985) Pages: 279-301
• Author(s): G S Stilliman
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 23 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: An earlier version of this paper was presented to the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association in Denver, Colorado, June 2-5, 1983.

Annotation

This article analyzes the Philippine system of compulsory conciliation both in terms of its significance in the context of the political system as a whole and in terms of its operation at the village level.

Abstract

I argue that the mediation structures established by national law are part of a pattern in the which the Phillippine state is incorporating within it the various sectors of civil society, but that the cooptation of the customary method of dispute processing is not meeting resistance from the rural Filipino. This analysis supports the more general argument that systems of informal justice operate to enhance centralized political authority, yet it reveals the dialectical nature of such arrangements for dispute processing. (Publisher abstract)