The Public Attorney’s Office got a +58 percent trust rating of professionals in the justice sector, beating the private lawyers’ +43 percent, judges at +37 percent, prosecutors at +35 percent and police at +33 percent.
Hector Diaz Soliman, senior adviser to Justice Governance in Justice Programme, conducted the survey during a legal aid summit in Bacolod City on Nov. 27-30 to determine the situationer on access to justice entitled “Justice Needs Survey and the Access to Justice Study (GOJUST).
The survey involved a Social Weather Stations study from August to September 2021, and a total of 3,900 respondents broken down into 1,200 in a national survey, justice zone survey in six cities with 1,800 respondents and three of the poorest provinces—Camarines Norte, Eastern Samar and Lanao del Sur with 300 correspondents each.
Based on the Justice Governance in Justice Programme survey, 36 percent of all Filipinos have experienced a justiciable issue in the past five years (translated to 25.6 million Filipinos).
Of the 36 percent who encountered a legal problem, a good 63 percent acted on the matter typically by reaching out to the other party or taking the case to the barangay for advice or mediation, while 37 percent did not take any action at all.
Public lawyers topped the list in the trust rating of professionals in the justice sector.
Moreover, PAO got +57 percent trust rating of institutions in the justice sector, followed by the city or town government (+52 percent), barangay (+50 percent), Philippine National Police (+47 percent), Supreme Court (+42 percent), Integrated Bar of the Philippines (+41 percent) and trial courts (+40 percent).
0n the role of public defenders, 71 percent of the respondents agreed that “the lawyers who are public defenders of the Philippines do everything they can do to defend poor people that are accused of committing a crime.”
“The PAO welcomes the result of the survey about the very high trust ratings of PAO under my leadership with all the PAO lawyers. It is heartwarming to know that.
This only goes to show that despite the intrigues and unfounded judgment, the people themselves are the ones judging our sincerity and genuineness to help those in need,” PAO chief Persida Acosta said.