Obviously, there are countries that run smoothly even without the benefits of a Jury System. However, those countries did not have a past which made graft and corruption endemic in the Filipino society.
In the fifties, the Philippines was the second most successful country in Asia. Fifty years later, it has become the second least successful country in Asia. WHY? The reason has been the lack of self-confidence of the Filipino people as a nation. This lack of self-confidence has been imposed by centuries of corruption practiced by our Spanish colonizers.
This corruption commenced with the conquistadores in the 1500s until 1898 when the country was handed over to another colonizer _ the Americans.
Even after the Americans granted independence, corruption still persisted.
As a people, we were battered from pillar to post by corruption. No wonder that, even though we were second best in Asia in the fifties, we lost our belief in ourselves and our leaders and we have never regained it.
The 14 Martial Law years just galvanized our distrust of our leaders.
The toppling of the Marcos regime in 1986 with the world’s first bloodless People Power Revolution, did not bring the desired effect. Succeeding governments from then onwards were as corrupt as before, or even more corrupt!
Following our Peoples Power Revolution, corruption at high level has become shameless! Apathy settled in and the people have become self-centered, selfish and unpatriotic!
The Philippines has become the most corrupt country in Asia for the last fifty years.
A JURY SYSTEM is the only judicial mechanism that empowers the people to indirectly oversee the government they have created and to directly administer equal and fair justice to all – rich or poor – powerful or powerless – of whatever religion, region, ethnic group or gender.
Both the UK, (which has had Jury System for 800 years) and the USA, (for 400 years) have had the Jury System as the foundation of their justice system. UK has a parliamentary form of government while USA has a presidential and federal form of government. They both owe the stability and strength of their countries to the Jury System!
Before we plunge our country to any more ill-thought-out changes, can we consider the Jury System?
This system will lead to a long-lasting change for the better, and will bring justice to all.
After all, it is the missing piece in our country’s constitutional jigsaw puzzle. Until this piece is put in place in our Constitution (that was patterned after USA’s but without the Jury System) the politicians will continue to do as they please, and laugh at the laws that the rest of us have to obey.
Winston Churchill said:
“GOVERNMENT WILL BE THE SERVANT OF THE PEOPLE ONLY AS LONG AS JURIES OF ORDINARY CITIZENS HAVE THE FINAL SAY”.
Our government is not the servant of the people. We need a Jury System.