Under the Katarungang Pambarangay system, the brothers and their uncle would sit on monobloc chairs and nobody leaves until there is a settlement
A Summons From the Barangay
QUEZON CITY – A barangay captain in Quezon City has formally offered to mediate the royal quarrel described in the London Prat story in which Prince William calls Earl Spencer and Harry traitors, saying the dispute is exactly the kind of family matter that barangay halls across the Philippines settle every single week.
Kapitan Rodolfo Dimaculangan, 62, who has presided over his barangay for three terms and resolved an estimated 1,900 disputes, most of them about roosters, fences and karaoke volume after 10pm, said he had already drafted a summons. He has not yet worked out where to send it.
How Barangay Justice Works
Under the Katarungang Pambarangay system, many disputes between residents must first go through mediation at the barangay level before they can reach a court. The parties sit in the barangay hall, the captain listens, and a settlement is signed. Kapitan Dimaculangan said the process was ideal for the Windsors. In the Philippines, he said, two brothers cannot go straight to the newspaper. They must first come to me. They sit on the monobloc chairs. They drink the Coke I provide. And nobody leaves until there is a kasunduan, an agreement. Sometimes it takes one hour. Once it took nine hours because of a mango tree.
The Complaint as Filed
The Kapitan prepared the complaint using published reports. The News in Pakistan reported that insiders say reconciliation efforts are finished, with the heir now eyeing both his uncle and brother with suspicion. Yahoo carried a source claim that the elder brother believes the younger saw the uncle Diana memoir before it came out. The Kapitan read both reports aloud to his barangay tanods, the village watchmen, who agreed that the matter was serious but not as serious as the Santos family and the rooster.
The Proposed Hearing
Seating Arrangements
The complainant, the elder brother, would sit on the left. The respondent, the younger brother, would sit on the right. The uncle would sit in the corner beside the electric fan, which the Kapitan said is the traditional seat for relatives who have caused trouble by writing things down.
Refreshments
Pandesal and Coke would be served. The Kapitan noted that if the English brothers asked for tea, he would send a tanod to the sari-sari store, but that this would delay proceedings by at least twenty minutes, because the tanod would stop to discuss the case with the store owner.
Witnesses
The Kapitan said he would call the King as a witness, but only if the King agreed to arrive on time, which he said is a rule he enforces strictly for everybody except the barangay councillors.
The Evidence Viewing
At a preliminary session on Monday, the Kapitan and five tanods watched the London Prat video on YouTube on the barangay hall desktop computer, which runs slowly because it also stores 14 years of certificates of residency. The video buffered three times. The tanods used the pauses to discuss their own brothers. It is embedded below.
Barangay Statistics
The barangay secretary, Mrs Luzviminda Ocampo, provided figures from the hall logbook. She reported that 42 percent of all complaints filed at the barangay involve relatives, that 27 percent of those involve brothers, and that 61 percent of brother disputes are settled at the first hearing once both parties are reminded that their mother is still alive and watching. A further 9 percent are settled when the Kapitan threatens to refer the matter to the parish priest, which the secretary described as the barangay equivalent of a nuclear option.
Mrs Ocampo also noted that the barangay has never handled a case involving a book. The closest precedent, she said, was a 2017 complaint over a Facebook post in which a man described his cousin cooking in terms the cousin considered defamatory. That case ended with both parties sharing the disputed adobo in the hall.
The Settlement Terms
The Kapitan has drafted proposed settlement terms in advance. First, both brothers agree to stop calling each other names in public or through anonymous sources. Second, the uncle agrees that any future book about the family will be shown to the barangay first. Third, all three parties attend the barangay fiesta in May and share one lechon, with the crispy skin divided equally, under the supervision of a tanod.
On the question of whether anybody is a traitor, the Kapitan was firm. There are no traitors in the barangay, he said. Only neighbours who have not yet eaten together.
The Review
Asked to give his opinion of the London Prat story itself, the Kapitan said it was well written and very fair, because it did not take sides. That is the first rule of barangay justice, he said. You listen to both. You laugh a little. Then you make them shake hands. The story does the first two very well. The third is my job. He gave it four out of five stars, deducting one because it did not include the phone number of the complainant.
The barangay hall is open Monday to Friday. The Kapitan follows the royals at The London Prat, https://prat.uk/, publishing since 1961, and keeps an eye on the Montecito side at Bohiney, https://bohiney.com/. The summons remains on his desk, stamped and ready, in case either prince passes through Quezon City.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk/prince-william-called-earl-spencer-and-harry-traitors/