UNIVERSITY OF SAN CARLOS

School of Law and Governance

College of Law

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Requirement:

Reflection Journal

Submitted to:

Dean Joan Largo

Submitted by:
 Angela Nicole S. Elpa

JD-NT2 EH408MC

Before going to the seminar, I don’t have any idea

on what I could get in this seminar, I was clueless,
and what I have in mind about conflict is a negative
energy and a waste of time as well. The first thing we
had to do at the start of the seminar was to define
conflict. I was expecting that I already know what
conflict is all about. At first, we were introduced on
what is conflict and its negative and positive effects.
In fact, I was not expecting that conflict also has
positive impact in our lives, such as: 1) conflcts are
seeds for growth; and 2) No conflict, no development.

After the introduction, we were tasked to form a

circle and group into eight each. We were instructed
to move anywhere we wanted to go in the room
without talking. It was a fun activity because it did
not just break the ice and made us awake, but we
learned that there are different ways to communicate
by using body language or use our instincts in
reaching to our goal, which is to go to a certain place
in the room. One group in the room went around and
could not decide where they should go in the room
because there arises “conflict” between two persons
where one wanted to go to the left side and the other,
to the right side of the room. The speaker,
Mr.Villanueva explained what happened why the
group went around in the room because there exist a
conflict between two goals. He then showed us
several definitions from Johan Galtung and John
Lederach which defined the word conflict as a
process through which two or more actors try to
pursue incompatible goals while trying to undermine
the goal-seeking potential of the others. In other
words, when people in the same group have different
goals, and each one of them wanted to go to their
respective goals, there arises conflict. This statement
is an eye opener for me because I realized that
incompatible goals and means could result to conflict
and not because of the persons themselves and to my
surprise, John Lederach also describes it as an
opportunity and a gift. That initiated my interest on
the topic and lead my mind to several ideas and
questions and even the consideration that conflict is
actually a very important subject to be scrutinized
and analyzed.

After the activity, the speaker then illustrated a

lot of situations wherein one could not expect that
conflict arises in such certain situation. Just like in
the “conflict of nature”, he then asked, “why is
Boracay Island magical?” he explained that according
to his biology teacher, there is no Boracay island
when there is no conflict of nature, where the rain,
wind, sunlight and all other natural calamities clash.
In fact, those conflict created the corals of Boracay
more appealing to the eyes and made it a spectacular
place to be at for people to unwind. With that, conflict
is indeed something that we meet and face in our
daily lives. Conflict in a general sense is omnipresent.
It exists, breaths and grows everywhere. That is the
very reason why it is not something to be taken lightly
or put aside in a corner. As the speaker went on and
illustrated more situations that involves conflict, I
became more and more curious about the things that
I could prossibly learn and apply it to my day to day
life and my future profession. We were then handed a
paper where we could rate (from 1 to 5) ourselves
based on the questions stated on the paper. After
rating ourselves and calculating the results, we were
instructed to look at the back of the paper where we
could see the interpretation of our results. I was
amazed on the results because I got the high scores
in yielding and compromising, problem solving. It
made me think that may not just be a lawyer, but also
a mediator, but these are only tendencies. Well, I
must be.

We were once again given an activity,

particularly on the topic of “Conflict Escalation”. The
activity involves the sharing of our experiences and
on how we deal conflict and make step by step
process on how conflict starts and escalates. What
makes it more interesting is that we each had the
opportunity to realize our mistakes on how we dealt
with past conflicts we encountered. There is also the
realization how difficult it is to resolve the latter
stages of the conflict since it would involve not only
the two conflicting parties but also the people around
them as they form coalitions in order to get
companions on their side. We tend to treat conflict as
a competition and treat the other person we are in
conflict with as our adversary and comes with it is
the desire to win over the other. After sharing our
experiences, we made up our mind and agree to how
conflict escalates based on our similarities on how
conflict escalates and drew the steps starting from
the first stage of “tension and crystallization” up to
the last stages of “destruction of the opponent” and
“self-destruction”. That shows us that conflict does
not just come out or appear in the air. It begins on a
certain level as it goes up and evolves into a more
problematic situation. The last stage being the most
problematic. Mr. Villanueva emphasized that at the
first stage of the conflict, self-help is still possible
and when we reached to the “tipping point” where
conflict already has us, that is the time we could not
determine where and how we can solve it. As pointed
out, this only goes to show how importance it is that
we should be aware of where we are in our
relationship with our peers. Conflict escalates, and in
order to prevent it before it goes further into the last
stage, it is better to treat it on its early stages. The
arrangement of conflict escalation as suggested in
the discussion starts with tension and crystallization,
followed with debate, confrontation, formation of
coalitions, open attack and loss of face, threatening
strategies, limited destructive blows and sanctions,
destruction of opponent, and ends in self-destruction.
In that particular order. The best approach aside from
the conflict analysis tools that was presented (i.e
onion, tree, mapping, ABC, and the like), as illustrated
by Mr. Villanueva, is to talk about each other’s
differences, identify the root of the misunderstanding,
and talk of a solution or offer to compromise. All
those are difficult to achieve in the higher stages of
the ladder as our minds would have already been
clouded by then and recognition of each other’s side
would be hardly considered. Hence, it is necessary
that we determine what stage we are in in order that
we may mitigate the worse circumstances to arise.

In the escalation ladder activity, we got to

discuss among the group our own experiences as to
how we’ve encountered the stages presented in the
ladder. What makes it more interesting is that we
each had the opportunity to realize our mistakes on
how we dealt with past conflicts we encountered.
There is also the realization how difficult it is to
resolve the latter stages of the conflict since it would
involve not only the two conflicting parties but also
the people around them as they form coalitions in
order to get companions on their side. What even
makes it more difficult is that we are not only in
conflict with the opposing side but also with our
selves. We tend to defend our egos despite knowing
our mistakes and misdoings. Oftentimes, when we
encounter conflict, we treat the other person we are
in conflict with as our adversary and comes with it is
the desire to win over the other. Some more humble
approach rarely comes into action, wherein one party
would offer to “be the better person” and admit that
he is wrong or just heed to what the other person
wants even it is hurtful to his ego. However, the best
approach, as illustrated by Mr. Villanueva through
some story-telling, is to talk about each other’s
differences, identify the root of the misunderstanding,
and talk of a solution or offer to compromise. All
those are difficult to achieve in the higher stages of
the ladder as our minds would have already been
clouded by then and recognition of each other’s side
would be hardly considered.

The interesting and educational part of the

seminar for me was when we came to the topic on
“tools in analyzing conflicts”. The tools were first
introduced to us after which we had an activity to
apply those in our chosen case and analyzing a
certain conflict. As far as I can remember, the tools
are: ABC Triangle, Onion Ring and Mapping
Stakeholder. Each group presented their own cases
based on several conflicts based on actual supreme
court cases, current events, and some were even
more creative by choosing conflicts that transpired in
movies, such as Harry Potter and even from a local
television series. It might seem all just for fun but the
activity actually helped us in better understanding the
cases that we chose to analyze. It made the stories
clearer and we were able to get a more
comprehensible perspective of all the sides of the
conflict in the cases. The tools that were introduced
to us are actually applicable in real life situations and
even in the resolution of actual legal issues before it
even reaches the court. It actually gave us an avenue
on how to solve cases expediently with mutually
acceptable solution.

On the second day, we first had the topic on the

“Do No Harm Approach or Conflict Sensitivity”. I was
not really familiar with this because I only came
across this principle when we were assigned a case
in Public International law. We were given an example
wherein a poor guy who lives in a province who was
given a hundred dollar bill, and was imprisoned
because he was accused in stealing the money in the
City. The moral of the story, “Not all good intention
would lead to peace or the welfare of the people you
helped.” In other words, what we may have done good
to others would result to an absurd and an
unexpected situation that we did not want to happen.
There are times when even if our intentions are noble,
the help that we extend becomes useless because of
our insensitivity. We should be mindful that we live in
a very diverse society that requires us to be more
tactful because we might have beliefs or practices
that are contrary to other communities. I think that
being conflict sensitive in order to avoid harm is also
an important aspect in analyzing conflicts.

As we go on, we were given several pictures that

has 2 perspectives. We were then tasked to
determine what is in the picture. Our views were
different. Others could see what the others could not
see. When we relate this to conflict, we must always
be careful with what we see and what we assume
things to be, because maybe what we see is not what
in reality is. That is why, we must see things like an
eagle to deal with conflict and be sensitive enough so
that things will not get rough in the near future.

The next topic we talked about was regarding

arbitration and mediation. This is also a topic I’m
already familiar with from our discussions in criminal
procedure and as mentioned in some of our law
subjects. One line that Mr. Villanueva said about
mediation and the legal practice really got to me. He
said, “a lawyer may have won a case but more often,
he doesn’t get to resolve the conflict”. That line
struck me the most because it made me think of the
whole point of studying to be lawyer. When we
become lawyers, we must not think of the goal of
winning our case, we must solve conflict between
parties because we never know what comes after the
case has come to an end, because it is often that
failure could most likely transform or leads us to
violence most especially when the conflict is
accompanied by anger. (i.e violence will be resorted
to between parties). As law students and soon to be
lawyers, we must not only win or solve cases, we
must solve conflict as well because it is one of the
most essential subjects that we have to deal with.
Legal conflicts often involve two opposing parties,
and we are always inclined and tasked to work
towards the best interest of our clients. However,
lawyers also have this higher obligation to aid the
courts in serving justice. Yet, as can be often
observed, most practitioners of the law are actually
more concerned in winning rather than serving the
interest of justice and in the lease, giving attention to
conflict resolution.

I read a book that says, most people, including

Filipinos are of litigous nature. We would often file
cases over simple matters not to attain justice but to
prejudice the other party that we are in conflict with,
because we associate conflict with anger. That is
why, mediation in our legal system has not been
resorted to oftentimes. I agree with the speaker that
most of our mediators are not even well-trained or
well-equipped to properly handle conciliation. This is
exactly why it is difficult for lawyers to focus in
resolving the conflict rather than upholding the
interest of the client. It is quite a challenge to always
consider conflict resolution when the profession itself
demands of us to be competitive in order to excel and
succeed. He then added, that the solution to this is
time with proper practice and experience is required
to perfect the process. We must always keep in mind
that reconciliation is a concept of justice and in the
future, with proper experience and education about
conciliation and mediation, people could say that “I
already diagnosed the confict, I am going to the
lawyer for a second opinion.” instead of directly going
to court and mix anger with conflict that would result
to a very chaotic situation.
 In a nutshell, the whole seminar was a fun
learning experience, because it was an interactive
seminar wherein we play games and afterwards, the
games were interpreted and applied to certain
principles about conflict, dispute resolution,
mediation and conciliation and the like. In other
words, the activities were not only fun but it made us
better understand the topics in the seminar. The
speaker was also excellent in conveying to us the
importance of the topic. There were a lot of things
that I’ve learned and realized in those two days.
Before the seminar, I was totally uninterested about
this topic, because I was always more concerned
with the legalities and rules of the law profession and
I have disregarded the possibility of conflict
resolution. The seminar made me realize that I should
not just be a good lawyer and win cases, but I should
also be a good human being, sensitive to conflict and
considerate to my fellow individuals.