CA justice pushing Filipino as primary court language
With English the language predominantly used in the country’s courtrooms, a Court of Appeals (CA) justice has been trying for more than a decade to cause a ripple of change in the system by writing decisions in Filipino as part of his efforts to bring the courts closer to ordinary people.
It’s a challenging task, Associate Justice Apolinario Bruselas Jr. told the Inquirer, but one that he hopes will become more common among his peers to ensure that all accused incapable of reading, writing or comprehending English can fully understand the cases against them.
After all, the late President Benigno Aquino III had also done the same in the Executive Department, particularly in his annual State of the Nation Address which he delivered mostly in Filipino.
In December 2024, Bruselas upheld the homicide conviction of a laborer who killed his foreman but modified the prison term from 10 to 17 years to 8 to 14 years.
He wrote his 11-page ruling in Filipino, with a footnote saying: “Isinulat sa wikang pambansa upang lalong maunawaan ng nasasakdal na nagsalaysay sa sariling wikang Filipino (The decision was written in the national language for the better understanding of the accused who testified in Filipino).”
Accused only observer
A portion of his decision noted that only the accused appeared to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses during the hearing.
With over three decades in the legal profession, first as a trial prosecutor, then as a regional trial court judge before he joined the appellate court, Bruselas is very familiar with how criminal proceedings unfold: from the police preparing the complaint affidavit, the prosecutor issuing a resolution, up to the conduct of the arraignment and pretrial hearings—all done using English as the main language.
“The lawyer, whether a private or public attorney, speaks in English. The judge’s orders are also in English. It’s all in English, while the accused is just an observer,” he said.
“Until the court hands down its decision—in English—and even during promulgation, the accused, after six months, a year, or even two years, still has no idea what happened to them until they find themselves serving [their] sentence in prison,” he said.
According to Bruselas, he tried to speak in Filipino as a trial court judge but admitted that his efforts “didn’t really make much of a difference because everything was still in English.”
“So it wasn’t very clear to me then [impact of using Filipino as main court language]. But when I was in the appellate court, I saw the effect because I could read the transcripts from the lower court and I could tell the accused understood nothing. So I [thought], it’s high time [to start writing decisions in Filipino],” he recalled.
Bruselas joined the Court of Appeals in 2005 but he only started writing decisions in Filipino around 2010, initially during the “Linggo ng Wika” celebration. Since then, he has done it more often.
Not unprecedented
Though writing decisions in Filipino may not be common, it is not unprecedented. Court records showed that the 1989 Supreme Court ruling of the late Justice Emilio Gancayco in People v. Barranco, which upheld a rape conviction, and the 1999 case of People v. Ventura Vinaya by Justice Alicia Austria-Martinez were written in the national language.
The late Justice Ruben Reyes also wrote some decisions in Filipino, though not consistently, Bruselas said.
According to him, the Supreme Court had also taken steps toward this direction, previously by creating a special court for trials and decisions conducted and written, respectively, in Filipino, as well as the initiative of retired Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban to translate laws into the national language.
