Kintanar, Marie Caitlin C.

IV – JD (ILP)
ADR

A New Age of Conflict Resolution

The concept of conflict encompasses age, race, gender and culture.

Conflict in society is universal and it only speaks of one language. It is a
process present as human relationships become complex. It is inherent for
every human action to attempt – deliberately or not, to oppose or resist any
process towards cooperation. Thus, conflict speaks of differences, may it be
individual or collective differences and because of these, men fail to
accommodate themselves resulting to conflict.

Conflict has always been an interesting topic. Whether we like it or not,

it involves good stuff where drama feeds on. Conflict involves two parties
with no common ground and that one believes that his interests are way better
than the other. It may result to peaceful resolution but more often than not, the
solution is to eliminate the one or the other. Therefore, society makes the
greatest effort to introduce processes to control conflict. However, even with
these efforts, it can still be adduced that universally, it has not been successful
to smoothen conflict among individuals.

How is conflict then directly connected with the legal profession? The
answer simply is litigation. It is the bridge that connects the general concept
of conflict and the society’s duty to control conflict. Litigation is the judicial
form of conflict. It is basically exercised by individuals or groups when
asserting claims and defining their rights when these are violated in the event
conflict. However, the sad reality is, court litigation, although the most civil
way of resolving conflict has become very expensive not to mention, time
consuming. This is because, majority of the unresolved issues that are
clogging the court’s dockets are simple issues that may be resolved
extrajudicially.

The courts cannot just deny hearing a case because the issue is simple.
Its ultimate duty is to administer justice through resolving cases expeditiously.
However, the reality is far from what is expected. How can the courts deliver

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the promised speedy resolution of conflict when the truth is, lawyers, who
shall be the allies of the courts are themselves the cause of the problem?
Instead of promoting mediation, conciliation and amicable settlement,
lawyers influenced clients to do otherwise.

Therefore, alternative dispute resolutions are as equally important as

criminal and civil procedure. Legislators saw the need and urgency of such
resulting to the enactment of Republic Act No. 9285 or An Act To
Institutionalize The Use Of An Alternative Dispute Resolution System In The
Philippines And To Establish The Office For Alternative Dispute Resolution,
And For Other Purposes. The aim of such law is to “encourage and actively
promote the use of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) as an important
means to achieve speedy and impartial justice and declog court dockets”. It is
expected then that parties as represented by their lawyers, shall, primarily,
resolve to extrajudicially settle their conflict.

As an aspiring lawyer, it has been an honor to attend the activity

organized by the school last January 26 and 27, 2019. On the first day, we
were taught on how to understand conflict, what are the different conflict
analysis tools and how to apply them to prevent escalation of conflict. During
the first part of the seminar, through an activity, we were introduced to the
different conflict handling styles. This activity was an eye-opener to me
because I have always thought that I am the confrontational type of person
and I have always believed that when there is conflict, confronting them
before it gets out of hand is the best solution. However, I was proved wrong.
Mr. Cesar H. Villanueva, the amazing speaker taught us that the conflict
handling styles will vary on what type of conflict and who the parties are.
Each conflict handling style has its own pros and cons. Thus, applying them
wrongly may be counterproductive.

From then on, it has become apparent that conflict is a natural part of
life. Whether we think of it or not, we cannot, even if we want to, escape
conflict. According to John Paul Lederach, “conflict is a normal and
continuous dynamic within human relationships and motor of change”.
Therefore, conflict is attached to societal development. Since conflict is an
essential part of our lives, it is incumbent upon us to understand what conflict
is. More importantly, lawyers should become the experts of conflicts because
conflict is well-attached to the legal profession.

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 I have always associated conflict with incompatibility of people and
believed that because people have different personalities, they tend to clash.
However, I was again proven wrong. This seminar made me realize that
conflict has nothing to do with personalities but more of incompatibility of
goals and the means of attaining them. Considering this, according to Johan
Galtung, conflict is “a process through which two or more actors (parties) try
to pursue incompatible goals while trying to undermine the goal-seeking
potential of the others”. When a person is in conflict with another, he tends to
feel superior and thus insisting that his belief or opinion is better than the
other, or his goals are more important than the other. What can be adduced
here is that, solving conflict is rarely about who is right but more on
acknowledging and appreciating the differences.

From understanding to solving conflict, it is equally important to know that

conflict has its own life cycle. Success in conflict resolution depends on how
one can determine the stages and timely intervene to prevent conflict
escalation. Thus, we were introduced to “The Ladder” or the development of
conflict through an activity where we were grouped together and we were told
to share different stories of conflict. What I’ve learned after the activity was
that, even if we had different stories, there’s a pattern showing on how conflict
escalates. Of course, it always starts with a tension. There is tension when two
parties have incompatible goals, beliefs, opinions or behavior. In this first part
of the ladder, some people just let go of the differences to avoid conflict but
more often than not, parties take and assert their positions. Thus, a debate will
ensue and once the parties entered this stage, confrontation is almost
inevitable. It cannot be avoided that when there is conflict especially in large
groups, coalitions are formed according to where they believe their goals
aligned. From there, the next parts reflect deterioration of communication and
destructive accusations being thrown by the parties. If at this point, there is no
intervention or realization among the parties, conflict may really get out of
hand as threats and harmful blows will become the only resort by the parties
in order to win and destroy the other.

The abovementioned process is very enlightening. As a party to a

conflict, having in mind these processes, you will be able to evaluate the
severity of your future acts. As an onlooker and initial intervenor, you will be
able to know the right time to intervene without adding fuel to the fire. Lastly,
as an aspiring lawyer, the ladder is helpful to guide you on when to introduce
conflict transformation which will control the situation and avoid or prevent

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escalation. Conflict transformation is a skill a good lawyer should have.
Sometimes, these alternative dispute resolutions are more difficult than
proving ones claim before a court of justice. It does not require mastery of the
law rather, it requires courage, determination, and leadership.

I have also realized after the seminar that conflict and anger do not go
together. When there is anger, there is always violence. But conflict does not
necessarily result to violence. This was the very essence of one of the
activities. This struck a chord because, to be honest, I am a hot headed person
but I believed that conflicts should be resolved at the earliest possible time. In
this part of the seminar, I have really learned a lot. Having a hot head and
wanting to resolve conflict may do more bad than good. No matter how good
your intentions are if the tool or instrument used is defective, it will only
worsen the situation and may escalate the conflict. As what Mr. Villanueva
said, one cannot force the other party to a confrontation if he is not yet ready.
He gave an example of a real case wherein his friend had accident resulting to
a death of a pedestrian. The family of the victim decided not to file charges
against his friend. But his friend wanted to talk to the family to clean his
conscience. However, the family refused and told him that they are not yet
ready. Mr. Villanueva advised his friend that in this kind of situation, insisting
to confront is not the correct way to handle the conflict. My takeaway from
that story is that apart from understanding what is the concept of conflict is, it
is equally important to analyze also the background and history of the situation
as well as the current development. Not only that, it is also important to
understand the different parties, their different perspective regarding the issue
and to be able to spot where they can relate with each other. Ultimately, it
would be very handy for a lawyer to be able to predict future developments
and prevent escalation of conflict.

Upon entering the discussion of conflict analysis, we were given

another activity where we have to use 3 out the 5 tools in analyzing conflicts.
The list includes ABC triangle, Historical Timeline, Conflict Tree, Onion and
Conflict Mapping. We just used the ABC triangle, Onion and Conflict
Mapping. It was really informative and it simplified the reality of handling
conflict through plotting the different core concepts of conflict analysis. What
I’ve learned from the activity was that as the situation always vary, no one
tool explains everything. To be applicable, it is advisable to use most
appropriate tool first and incorporate other tools to efficiently come up with
more accurate results. It need not to be perfect since perfection may lead to

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paralysis. Thus, these tools became useless when parties decided to negotiate.
When the parties are ready to negotiate and wanted put everything behind,
there is no need to insist on using these tools. Conflict Transformation shall
otherwise be introduced.

The last part of the seminar which was eloquently discussed by the
speaker on the 2nd day, is about conflict transformation. He started it by
showing to us a picture of two donkeys tied together by a short rope around
their necks. Each of the donkeys’ sides are the grasses. The goal of such is to
be able to their share of the grass as placed on each side. Since the rope is
short, it cannot accommodate the donkeys if they eat at the same time. The
solution to this kind of conflict is what we called as conflict transformation. It
was described by Johan Galtung as the “discourse of the conflict has changed
where vision has served as a reference point, a new anchor…a new reality of
the conflict created”. Therefore, by putting off the grass on one side both the
donkeys can now eat at the same time. Transformation is more than solving,
resolving or dissolving conflict. It must used the necessary tools like
transformative mediation. Being an aspiring lawyer, it is important to practice
the skills of meditation. Parties in conflict may agree for conciliation but they
are still more concern of winning rather than losing. The best approach is to
always find a common ground that will satisfy both of the parties. However,
in reality, compromising do not always result to equality. More often than not,
one party has to accommodate. But this does not mean that resolution is unfair
or bias because in attaining justice, fairness and reasonableness of the decision
is what matters.

To summarize, these alternative dispute resolutions need not to be

applied to settle legal issues only. Ultimately, the goal of alternative dispute
resolution is to be able to transform conflict which is undeniably an essential
part of every man’s life. But more importantly, conflict transformation shall
be practiced and exercised by lawyers and those aspiring to be one. We should
be able to introduce transformation to the parties in order satisfy each person’s
goals. Incompatibility of goals create conflict and when one cannot intervene
timely, conflict may escalate. Therefore, really, there is no hard and fast rule
on how to handle conflict. What is important is that one shall be able to
understand the general concept of conflict and the ultimate goal, that is,
transformation.