Keeping the trust

Yesterday, as I was entering the Qimonda building compound that houses the Cebu City courts, I saw many people waiting near the entrance of the building. My client then told me that the building was still off-limits to the public. I called up my source inside the courts and she confirmed that indeed only court personnel were allowed inside as of yesterday morning.

Thursday last week, the building suddenly shook even though there was no earthquake felt in Cebu, prompting lawyers and litigants to raise concerns about its safety. Cebu City mayor Edgar Labella immediately took action and went to the building together with city building officials. This weekend, lawyers were told through social media that a structural engineer had already inspected the building and found it safe.

Apparently as of yesterday, the building’s fitness for public occupancy was still under further evaluation. Whatever it takes in time and cost, we hope to be able to trust again the court building’s structural integrity – that it can take the load of many people and the thousands of court documents stacked up there.

* * *

Former Bayan Muna partylist representative Neri Colmenares called me up Sunday evening and asked if I could be in Bacolod the next morning to appear at the inquest of the 57 activists who were arrested in Bacolod and Escalante last Thursday evening. Colmenares is our chairman at the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) which recently had its national congress in Manila.

Aside from private law practice, I also handle public interest cases in Cebu and Negros for the NUPL, a nationwide association of human rights lawyers as well as Law students. The organization has been red-tagged by state elements because many of its clients are activists and members of left-leaning organizations.

Aside from NUPL, I am also a member of FLAG or the Free Legal Assistance Group, a group founded by human rights lawyers during the anti-dictatorship struggle of the Marcos years. Our national chairman of FLAG is lawyer and La Salle dean Chel Diokno.

Membership to the NUPL and FLAG has never been an issue to me. Lawyers are free to choose their organizations and their clients. Those who studied Law and took the Bar exams know very well that lawyers occupy a quasi-judicial office because we are officers of the court. Lawyers are still subject to the orders, directives, and disciplinary authority of the court in relation to our duty to the court as well as to our clients and to the republic.

Part of that duty is to maintain and give due consideration to the fidelity of trust and confidence that clients repose on a lawyer. When a client knocks on a lawyer’s door, the word “trust” is what usually led the client to that door. Litigation is costly, emotionally and financially, so a client goes first to the lawyer whom she can be most open with her confidences and whom she trusts to represent her.

In that sense, it is difficult to turn down a proposed engagement from a potential client despite one’s reservations about controversy or consequences.

If not for a case hearing scheduled yesterday in Qimonda, I would have immediately booked a Monday early morning flight to Bacolod to be at the inquest proceedings of the 57 people booked for alleged illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

Since I will be joining their legal team soon, I promise that this would be the only and last time I will mention about their arrest and their case in this column.