ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE

Mr. ROXAS. Now I come to the matter of administration of justice in the Philippine Islands. We have only one system of courts, and these courts are both courts of law and courts of equity. At the bottom we have justice of the peace courts, in every municipality. We have to-day 865 justices of the peace. A justice of the peace is required to pass an examination before he is qualified for appointment. As to courts of general jurisdiction the islands are divided into 28 judicial districts, in each of which there are one or more judges of first instance. Assisting these judges are 31 auxiliary judges. From a decision of the courts of first instance appeals may be taken to the supreme court of the Philippine Islands. Up to a year ago the supreme court of the Philippine Islands was composed of 9 justices, 5 Americans, and 4 Filipinos appointed by the President of the United States. Last year we increased the number of justices to 15, but the new members have as yet not been appointed. Judges of courts of first instance and justices of the peace are appointed by the Governor General by and with the advice and consent of the Philippine Senate. Justices of the supreme court are appointed by the President of the United States. The courts administer justice honestly, speedily, and efficiently. This has been recognized by impartial observers in official reports, and the people have thorough confidence in their courts.

Mr. JENKINS. Do you have trial by jury in the Philippines?

Mr. ROXAS. We do not. The American Constitution does not apply in the Philippine Islands. One of the first cases brought up to our supreme court raised the question whether the right of trial by jury was guaranteed to us, and it was held that it was not. This case was appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States which upheld the decision of our court.

Mr. WILLIAMS. What is the term of these judges?

Mr. ROXAS. They hold office during good behavior, with the exception of the justices of peace who must

Mr. WILLIAMS (interposing). I refer to the courts of first instance. What is the term of those judges?

Mr. Roxas. They have no term; they hold office during good behavior with this limitation: Justices of the peace and judges of the court of first instance must retire upon reaching 65 years of age; but there is no retirement age for justices of the supreme court.

Mr. UNDERHILL. Do you think that the limitation of 60 years is a wise one, or do you care to express an opinion about it? Mr. ROXAS. It is 65 years for both courts.

Mr. UNDERHILL. You remember that one of our justices recently retired voluntarily after he was more than 90 years of age.

Mr. ROXAS. In the Philippine Islands, in the tropics, we live our lives faster. [Laughter.] I do not mean to say that we live faster in the sense that you mean in the United States, but I mean life is shorter with us.

Mr. UNDERHILL. Your people die earlier?

Mr. ROXAS. Yes. An evidence of the confidence of the people in our courts is the fact that during the last six or seven months the Filipinos

have actually been in a majority in the supreme court of the Philippine Islands. To-day there are five Filipino justices and only four American justices, a Filipino is the chief justice; and such has been the record for efficiency, honesty, and impartiality of Filipino justices and judges, that up to the present there has not been a single complaint against this situation.

Mr. CROSS. Is Judge Street still on the bench there?

Mr. Roxas. Yes; and he is a very efficient judge.

Mr. JENKINS. If granted independence, will you espouse our complete system of jurisprudence and give the right of trial by jury? Mr. ROXAS. I would not favor trial by jury in the Philippine Islands. However, that is merely my personal opinion.

Mr. JENKINS. You would not?

Mr. ROXAS. No.

Mr. JENKINS. Why not?

Mr. Roxas. I believe, from the viewpoint of orderly government and substantial justice, it is better to have a judge trained in the law who is not enmeshed in the relations of each community to pass upon cases that may arise. But we have adopted a sort of compromise with the jury system: We have assessors in our courts, appointed at the request of the parties litigant, but these assessors sit with the judges only to advise them on questions of fact. The judge takes the responsibility for the decision as to the facts and the law.

Our substantive law is western. I mean it is based on the Roman law. Our laws governing property and family relations are the same as were in force during Spanish sovereignty and as you all know, they were grafted from the old Spanish codes and the Napoleonic code. However, our business law is modern. It is American. It is American. Our corporation law and our law on negotiable instruments have been modernized. They are practically the same as those in force in every State in the Union. Our adjective or procedural law is also Anglo-Saxon. It provides the same system of procedure as you have in your code States, such as California, Louisiana, and Vermont. This is very significant, not only because Anglo-Saxon court procedure secures speedy trial, but because it contains the necessary instrumentalities for the protection of individual rights, especially in criminal cases. I believe that it is this fact, more than any other besides, of course, the ability and integrity of our judges that has built up popular confidence in our courts of justice. This confidence is not limited to the provinces inhabited by Christian Filipinos. The justices of the peace among the Mohammedan Filipinos and the judges of the court of first instance in the non-Christian provinces are all Filipinos.

Mr. JENKINS. If a man is charged with a felony in your country, how many judges try his case?

Mr. ROXAS. There is first a preliminary investigation before arrest, which is very summary, before a justice of the peace. Then there is another preliminary investigation after arrest in order to determine whether he should be held over for the next session of the court of first instance. After that preliminary investigation he is either detained or released on bail, then the case is sent to the court of first instance for trial. His case is heard before the judge of the court of first instance.

Mr. JENKINS. How many judges compose that court?

Mr. Roxas. One. That decision may be appealed to the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands, and the decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Islands may, through a writ of certiorari, be taken to the Supreme Court of the United States if the case involves the constitutionality or legality of a statute of the Philippine Islands or the United States. In civil cases this appeal is allowed in cases involving more than $25,000. But the Supreme Court of the United States has been very strict in granting an appeal through certiorari proceedings and there are not more than two or three cases thus taken every year.

Mr. JENKINS. If the only issue were the guilt or innocence of the accused, the case could not come to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Mr. ROXAS. No.

Mr. WILLIAMS. You have no grand jury system of indictment? Mr. Roxas. No; but we have, as I have said, a preliminary investigation before arrest and a preliminary investigation after arrest. Mr. WILLIAMS. Both before a justice of the peace?

Mr. ROXAS. Yes; except in the city of Manila. That system has been found to be satisfactory so far. I may add that the government prosecutor is not bound by the decision of a justice of the peace. The justice of the peace may acquit an accused, and yet, if the evidence submitted to the prosecuting attorney is such that he believes there are grounds to prosecute the accused, he may file an information before the court of first instance.

Mr. LozIER. Your system of jurisprudence is a composite product and is drawn both from the Roman system of laws and common law?

Mr. ROXAS. Yes; it is an amalgamation of the two systems.

Mr. LOZIER. And there is no more departure from each of those great systems in so far as you have adopted them, than there is in other nations that have used in whole or in part those two systems as a foundation for their systems of jurisprudence?

Mr. ROXAS. That is right.

Mr. LOZIER. As the Filipinos have a distinct culture and civilization you have drawn from each of these great systems that which in the opinion and experience of your people will best serve your population, and harmonize with your culture and civilization.

Mr. ROXAS. You are right, sir. We believe that laws are but an expression of the national conscience. We are staisfied that our present laws, especially concerning property rights and family relations, express the consicence of our people, and we have no intention of making radical changes. For instance, we have practically no divorce laws in the Philippine Islands. This conforms with our ideas on marriage. The only ground for divorce is unfaithfulness on the part of a spouse. But a decree of divorce is practically impossible for it is required that the guilt of the spouse be established in a criminal case.

I shall insert in the record a tabulated statement of the number of cases decided by our courts of first instance.

The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection, it is so ordered.

CIVIL CASES

Cases pending Jan. 1, 1930:

Ordinary

Statement of cases decided by courts of first instance
[From the 1930 report of the attorney general of the Philippine Islands]

Ordinary

Probate

Land registration.

8, 101

7, 601

3, 109

All others..

275

Decided..

10, 726

CRIMINAL CASES

1, 807

PHILIPPINE PENAL SYSTEM

Mr. ROXAS. Now, I come to our prisons, which are a part of our judicial system. I do not know whether members of the committee are interested in this subject but I would like to say that our prisons are being conducted in accordance with the modern ideas and conceptions of prison reform and penology. The underlying idea is that a criminal is a diseased member of society who must be reformed.

With regard to industrial prisons, we have large farms where the prisoners learn a trade, and produce what is necessary for their sustenance. We have 2 of those in the Philippine Islands, 1 at Iwahig and 1 at San Ramon. The one at Iwahig will be self-supporting soon. We have a prison population in the Philippine Islands to-day of about 8,000.

The average number of persons convicted during each year by the courts of first instance, including violations of ordinances, is about 7,000.

Mr. JENKINS. Have you the death penalty there?

Mr. Roxas. We have the death penalty, but it is rarely imposed. By law the death penalty may be imposed only by a unanimous decision of the supreme court. It may be imposed only after an appeal to the supreme court and a unanimous decision by that court.

Mr. JENKINS. These courts of first instance can not impose the death sentence?

Mr. ROXAS. Yes; but on appeal the decision must be by unanimous vote.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Who are these nine justices of the supreme court? Mr. ROXAS. Five are Filipinos and four are Americans.

Mr. WILLIAMS. And there must be a unanimous decision of the nine justices?

Mr. ROXAS. Yes. It must be unanimous. Appeals in cases where the death penalty has been imposed are automatic.

Mr. JENKINS. The accused may on filing some proceedings automatically appeal his case?

Mr. Roxas. The appeal is not discretionary. It is compulsory. The record is sent to the supreme court for review and decision.

PHILIPPINE CURRENCY

I shall now touch upon the important question of our currency. I have here [indicating] the report of the insular treasurer showing the amount of our currency circulation. On December 31, 1930, the total net circulation was 108,000,000. This was made up of P71,000,000 in treasury certificates; P20,000,000 in Philippine silver coins and P16,000,000 in bank notes. If you notice that we only had 108,000,000 in circulation, you will readily realize the soundness of our currency when you see that to back up this circulation we have according to the latest figures available, October 31, 1931a gold-standard fund amounting to P38,000,000, divided as follows: P10,000,000 in Philippine currency in the vaults of the Philippine treasury, P7,000,000 in United States currency in the vaults of the Philippine treasury, and P20,000,000 deposited in gold currency in the United States in several banks affiliated with the Federal reserve system. That is our gold-standard fund. Our law provides that the gold-standard fund shall be at all times not less than 15 per cent of our total circulation or available for circulation and not more than 25 per cent. With P38,000,000 reserve for a total circulation of P108,000,000, you will see that it is in excess of legal requirements in the amount of P16,000,000.

As to our treasury certificates we had on December 31, 1930, in circulation only P71,000,000, for which there was maintained a reserve of a dollar per dollar. Our treasury certificates have been termed warehouse receipts of the Philippine treasury. Our silver certificate carries the obligation of the insular government of the Philippine Islands to redeem those certificates at face value with legal tender of the Philippine Islands and it certifies that there is actually deposited in the Philippine treasury or in some agency of the Philippine treasury an equivalent in legal tender of its face value.

The point I want to make is this: In order to back up the P71,000,000 of treasury certificates, we now have on deposit in your Federal reserve banks here P81,000,000, in American currency or an amount very much larger than the actual treasury certificates in circulation. Besides this P81,000,000 located in the United States, we have 13,000,000 in the treasury of the Philippine Islands behind these certificates, partly in Philippine coin and P3,700,000 in American currency. These figures will bear out the statement I made yesterday, Mr. Chairman, that our currency is stable and is perhaps the only currency in the world that has a reserve larger than the total circulation.

With the consent of the committee, I will insert a quotation from Mr. Kemmerer's book on Modern Currency Reforms. In it he explains the gold exchange standard which is the basis of our currency system. I think it would be proper to insert it in the record, because it explains clearly how this reserve functions.

Mr. UNDERHILL. Does the peso pass in China and other eastern countries at the same value as American money?