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TO:	All Judges of the Courts of First Instance, Circuit Criminal Courts, Juvenile and Domestic Relations Courts, Courts of Agrarian Relations, City Courts and Municipal Courts, and all Fiscals and other Prosecuting Officers.
(SUBJECT:	Implementation of the Katarunpang Pambarangay Law)

To ensure immediate implementation of Presidential Decree No. 1508, otherwise known as the Katarungang Pambarangay Law, establishing a system of amicably settling disputes at the barangay level, you are hereby directed to actively and vigorously assist in the availment of the barangay settlement procedures as defined in said decree, and in particular, to observe strictly the statutory requirement of conciliation as a pre-condition to filing any complaint, petition, action, or proceeding involving any matter properly cognizable by the Lupong Tagapayapa.

In order to assess and evaluate the efficacy of the barangay settlement system of a means of decongesting court dockets, you are further directed to prepare a compilation of the data on all cases/offenses pending in your respective courts/offices, which would otherwise have fallen within the jurisdiction of the Lupong Tagapayapa, but wherein barangay settlement procedures had not been available.  The said report shall be submitted to the Supreme Court, In the case of judges, and to the Minister of Justice, in the case of fiscals and prosecutors, within sixty days from the date of the effectivity of this Order.  Thereafter, a monthly report shall be submitted to reflect the cases/offenses the filing of which in the courts of justice had been avoided as a result of availing of the settlement procedures of the barangay.

The Supreme Court and the minister of Justice shall issue the implementing; directives to carry out the objectives of this letter of instruction.

Done in the City of Manila, this 12th day of November in the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and seventy-nine.