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A point of law? - being a foriegner in the Philippines

by Babel-Fish | June 13, 2009 at 10:39 pm

168 views | 16 Recommendations | 5 comments

Tomorrow morning I go to the Philippine Hall of Justice concerning a trumped up charge of driving irresponsibly and causing a minor accident. I am of course innocent as a 7 year old boy dashed into the road not looking the right way. I signaled on my horn and had already slowed down and he was just at the end of my breaking distance and received a minor bump. He got up and ran away like he was in the Olympics shocked but perfectly okay..

However the problem here is even if you have Motor Bike insurance, Filipino’s will take a foreigner to court and use the incident to blackmail you. In this case I was asked 20,000 Peso’s (US$450) to settle out of court. Of course I refused to pay and tomorrow I will sample Filipino justice.

What is funny is that the motor bike number is wrong on the charge sheet and the bike listed is not registered to me. I have relayed this to the court however the case has pushed on and at a guess I will be found guilty as most foreigners are.

However my problem is that I can have this woman put into jail for fraud and have her child taken into care as its illegal to allow a child so young to cross main roads un-escorted. I do have a case prepared but have not introduced it to the prosecutors office. My reason being is this mother has two children and it’s a poor family and I would hate to take a mother away from her children.

I would rather pay the fine, if I have to and forget any of my anger if fair justice is not served. I can understand poor uneducated people lying and bearing false witness when there is an opportunity for money to improve their life’s. However I have been told the woman concerned wanted the cash to get a passport and work overseas. If that’s true she was willing to leave her kids anyway to earn money to improve the families life’s. But she is only trying to get out of the poverty rut.

Its took a load of thought and stress, I consider its best to stop the stress forthwith and not enter vendetta mode. Turn the other cheek…

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Paschen

flagged this story as Eyewitness Report

at 23:41 on June 13th, 2009

This is an eyewitness report from the NowPublic member Babel-Fish who was on the scene.

recommend This comment thread is now closed

Babel-Fish

at 22:41 on June 13th, 2009

Some times life brings problems there is no real solution to and the non logic answers the best even if it hurts your pride or your wallet.

Justin De La Cruz (not verified)

at 05:30 on June 14th, 2009

Not only to foreigners that they do this. But to most people who got money. I remember the time, when my uncle, the youngest in the family was driving on a dirt road in Dumaguete. For pete's sake, he was driving on a dirt road at that time with just a Ford Laser car - so how fast could you go on that road. Then suddenly a boy, just came running in front of him. Since my uncle was not going that fast, he was able to break in time and the boy getting nothing more than a bump too from it. But then since, they know my uncle and the money connections that he has. The family of the boy really sued him, ending with a whole load of cash for the incident. Who's to know maybe they pushed that boy to go in front of that none speeding car.... But then again, have you gone to Japan where the pedestrian is king. Anything on the court against the pedestrian (never mind whose fault it is), the pedestrian wins. No wonder they could walk as slow as they want on any of those small heavily trafficked roads in Japan....

Babel-Fish

at 17:13 on June 15th, 2009

Yep unfortunately these things happen and thankfully most Filipino's would not dream of doing such its just the opportunists. But I never thought for an instance that the child had purposely been told to dash in front of a motor bike and I was going very slow at the time on 15 K per hour because I observed the child at 500 meters away not looking in my direction. Slowed down and signal many times on my horn.

Barbara McPherson

at 09:22 on June 14th, 2009

Good luck with your case.

Babel-Fish

at 17:09 on June 15th, 2009

Thanks it went well, but the case has been accepted even with typo errors and mistakes go back to court in August for final hearing. Justice is not the same here a badly presented case would be thrown out in UK or USA.

However I am using a public attorney, I really do not want to pay out a great deal money on a case I know I have every chance of losing. There is a limit on what claimant can make 5000 Peso's so I decided not to pay 30,000 Peso's for my own private attorney. Most foreigners and rich people lose cases such as this unfortunately but that's up to the judge.

Her attorney looked annoyed yesterday now knowing that his client can not claim legal fees from me if I lose and that fraud is involved.

So today I am quiet happy and will just let events take their toll.