Asean legal eagles to converge in Manila

MANILA, Philippines - An association of lawyers, judges, and justices from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will hold its general assembly in this city by next month, and is set to make a courtesy call on President Aquino, parallel to the holding of events that include workshops for Filipino lawyers.

Avelino Cruz, regional VP of the ASEAN Law Association (ALA) and president of ALA Philippines, said the ASEAN chief justices and select ALA officials will visit Malacañang on Feb. 27, the third day of the association’s four-day 12th general assembly.

ALA Philippines, where Cruz is also chairman of its national committee, has worked closely with the preparations of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno as host for the Summit Meeting of all ASEAN chief justices, to be held on the world-famous island of Boracay on March 1-2, and who will converge in Manila for the ALA general assembly at the Makati Shangri-La Hotel.

The separate meetings on Boracay are on-track, and will be attended by ALA officials and delegates as guests, and by members of the Philippine Supreme Court, the High Tribunal’s Zaldy Trespeses said.

Michael Toledo, chairman of the standing committee on legal information at ALA Philippines, stressed the importance of the ASEAN economic integration, saying that bureaucracy must be trimmed for the free flow of goods, services, and capital among the member states.

“If you want to stimulate a level playing field, remove the red tape and promote transparency,” explained Toledo, who also heads the media bureau of the MVP group of companies and is SVP for regulatory and public affairs at Philex Mining Corp. “It may not even be a question about competition policy and law, but about good governance.”

 Cruz said the preparations for the Feb. 25-28 general assembly of ALA, founded in 1979 and will meet here in Manila for the first time since 1995, are complete, including the holding of six workshops, with a conference theme “Sharing Prosperity at the Crossroads of ASEAN Integration-the Legal Challenges.”

Thus, the workshops will address, among other things, the legal implications on the ASEAN integration of cross-border practices and commercial laws of the ASEAN legal community, as well as such fundamentals as commercial arbitration, free access to courts, and the rights of citizens to justice within the ASEAN countries.

Touching on all subjects of the MCLE, or mandatory continuing legal education, for Filipino lawyers, the workshops are on legal profession, alternative dispute resolution, international law, business law, trade and investment, and legal education. The paper writers and chairmen of these workshops will come from the 10 ASEAN countries.

Indonesia’s Chief Justice Hatta Ali, the incumbent ALA president, and ALA secretary-general Swandy Halim have said that preparations of all delegates from the nine other countries who will travel to Manila for the GA are on high gear, and will be ready for the opening day on Feb. 26.

The presidency of ALA, designated in the ASEAN Charter of 2007 as the regional bloc’s only civil society affiliate for law, rotates among the member nations every three years. Cruz was nominated Jan. 26 by the ALA Philippine national committee for the position of incoming president of ALA.

ALA’s Philippine national committee is headed by Cruz and vice chairman Alonzo Ancheta, with the following as members: Sereno; Justice Antonio Carpio; Lilia de Lima, director of the Philippine Economic Zone Authority; Prof. Myrna Feliciano; Danilo Concepcion, dean of the University of the Philippines’ College of Law; Andres Bautista, chairman of the Philippine Commission on Good Government; retired chief justices Artemio Panganiban and Reynato Puno; and ex-officio members, former senator Edgardo Angara and Senate President Franklin Drilon, who is also regional chairman of the ALA Foundation.

The other officials of ALA Philippines are: Victoria delos Reyes, secretary; Regina Geraldez, treasurer; Eduardo Hernandez, deputy secretary-general; Feliciano, editor of ALA Journal, and Victoria Loanzon, assistant secretary.