To further learning, justices ride the info superhighway

Judicial education has gone full speed on the information superhighway as the special academic unit of the Supreme Court extended the use of videoconferencing technology to seminars and trainings for justices nationwide.

The 3rd Tele-Video Conference conducted recently the Philippine Judicial Academy (Philja) marked the first time the institute made use of four simultaneous live sites in different parts of the country.

With Mosaic Communications (MosCom), the country’s first and largest Internet service provider, as its technical partner, Philja was able to reach out to seminar attendees in Metro Manila, Baguio, Cebu and Davao all at the same time.

Philja has been in charge of providing further training for justices in the last five years. It started experimenting with other modes of instruction early this year – in particular, the use of videoconferencing – to make the sessions more effective and interesting.

"It is a very efficient tool for administering our regular seminars and trainings," said lawyer Ivan Uy, deputy clerk of court and chief of the Management Information Systems of the Supreme Court.

Steve Rood, representative of The Asia Foundation, a staunch supporter of Philja’s projects, said the quality of videoconferencing services provided by MosCom during the seminar was comparable with those in the United States but cost much less.

"My colleagues in the US are surprised when I tell them how much cheaper we’re paying for videoconference here in the Philippines with the same quality we get in the US," he said.

"In the US, we usually use leased lines for videoconferencing and that’s much more expensive. Here it’s wonderful because we use the Internet. It doesn’t cost as much but the quality is really just the same," Rood added.

MosCom has been offering videoconferencing services to clients since last year. This technology allows the transfer of audio and video between separate locations to enable people on either end to communicate.

It has become increasingly popular especially among businesses because it reduces traveling among executives, allowing them to make more productive use of their time. It saves companies expenses on travel, accommodation and other related costs and frees them from other possible causes of delays such as canceled flights, traffic jams or bad weather.

In Philja’s recent videoconference, participants in the four live sites had free-wheeling discussions on conflict of laws between countries, mainly between the Philippines and the United States.

They tackled issues that ranged from those of national concern like that of the Marcos lawsuits, which were filed and tried in the United States though both plaintiffs and defendants are Filipinos, to such domestic matters as concubinage and divorce.

In previous Philja seminars, participants had to gather physically in one venue where the talks were held. That entailed a lot of coordination and expense for travel, accommodation, food and other necessary arrangements.

With videoconferencing, it’s "so much easier to put together these seminars and to convince our justices to participate. Videoconferencing just sounds expensive, especially when you think of the technology that comes into it, but it actually saves you money," Uy said.