Manila, 25 October 2022 — The Philippine Bar Association (PBA) urged the Philippine Government to accede soonest to the Convention on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters (Evidence Convention) as it will facilitate the taking of evidence available overseas, thus lower litigant costs, help address court delays and make the country’s law practitioners more competitive.
The PBA, the country’s oldest voluntary national organization of practicing lawyers headed by Atty. Rodelle Bolante, made the recommendation during the concluding session of the three-day Asia Pacific Week of the Hague Conference of Private International Law (HCCH) held 18-20 October at the Makati Diamond Hotel. The conference was attended by Dr. Christophe Bernasconi, HCCH Secretary General and some 230 government officials, judges, and lawyers in the Philippines and across the region.
In a statement read by Atty. Ernestine Carmen Jo Villareal-Fernando, PBA 2nd Vice President, the PBA noted “the complexities of litigation in the Philippines where party litigants and witnesses are already located abroad, affected by the diaspora of more than ten million overseas Filipinos and the greater mobility and interconnectivity resulting from globalization. Consequently, the process of obtaining evidence across borders in international judicial proceedings has become cumbersome due to the differences between legal systems, including those based on the civil and common law traditions. The Evidence Convention seeks to overcome these differences by establishing a uniform framework of cooperation mechanisms to facilitate and streamline the taking of evidence abroad through ‘Letters of Request.’”
During the conference, HCCH Secretary-General Bernasconi also had a luncheon meeting with Integrated Bar of the Philippines President Attorney Burt M. Estrada, PBA President Bolante and Philippine Institute of Arbitrators (PIArb) Chair emeritus Teodoro Kalaw IV. Others present were Paul Maglalang and Prof. Andre Palacios, IBP; 1st Vice President Joel Raymond Ayson and 3rd Vice President Peter Corvera, PBA: and Julius Anthony Omila and Ricardo Ongkiko, PIArb.
The PBA also called for accession to the Child Protection Convention. The bar association also commended the HCCH and the conference organizers composed of the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Supreme Court of the Philippines and the University of the Philippines College of Law for the “well-curated and well-attended conference,” and likewise expressed full support to the country’s active engagement with the HCCH, noting that the Philippines is party to five HCCH Conventions to date, namely the Inter-Country Adoption, Child Abduction, Service of Documents, Apostille, and Child Support.
In his presentation at the conference’s opening, Philippine Ambassador to the Netherlands J. Eduardo Malaya stated that the HCCH Conventions embody best practices in cross-border legal cooperation, and ratifying and acceding to them would lead to efficiency, cost savings and convenience to peoples, especially the OFWs, and companies.