DZMM Usapang De Campanilya with Justice NIMFA C. VILCHES (Windows Media Video).wmv

Justice Nimfa Cuesta-Vilches is senior Deputy Court Administrator (DCA) at the Office of the Court Administrator (OCA), Supreme Court of the Philippines. In 1989, she was appointed to the bench and after rendering consummate service as a judge for 17 years, she was awarded Outstanding Regional Trial Court Judge by the Society for Judicial Excellence, Supreme Court, in 2006. A day after the award or on September 27, 2006, she was appointed Assistant Court Administrator and in August 2008 was promoted as Deputy Court Administrator. For her extraordinary and unrelenting work directly benefiting the public and for promoting access to justice to overlooked sectors, DCA Vilches was conferred the prestigious 2009 Presidential Lingkod Bayan Award in September 2009- the highest recognition given to a government official or employee.

Among the lectures delivered by DCA Vilches before international fora are: "Trafficking in Women and Children" at the plenary session of the 4th World Congress on Family and Children's Rights and she chaired the session on "Child Trafficking" at Cape Town, South Africa, in 2005; "Making Juvenile Justice Work" at the University of Ottawa, Canada, in 2007; "Phenomenon of Juvenile Offending" at the International Juvenile Justice Observatory conference in Seville, Spain in 2007; and "Family Mediation" at the 1st Asian Mediation Association conference in 2009 at Singapore.

DCA Vilches was the first judge to sit in the mobile court bus of the "Justice on Wheels," an access to justice by the marginalized program of the Supreme Court of the Philippines that released from Manila juvenile facilities more than 40 children in conflict with the law during its launching in 2004. In 2008-2010, she was designated Vice-Chair and country-wide implementer of the program that lead to the following astounding data as of December 2010: 5,157 inmates released and 6,830 settled civil cases (with 96% successful settlement rate) through the "Mobile Court-Annexed Mediation" that DCA Vilches also founded.

DCA Vilches started as well the CASA-GAL program in the Philippines in 1999 composed of trained community volunteers who uphold the best interests of children in court that was voted by UNICEF as one of the ten innovative initiatives for children in Asia and the Pacific in 2005.

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