Why am I conducting UV Law review classes for free?

I have been a Law professor since 1977 and a Bar Reviewer since 1980, and from then on, I never stopped teaching and helping Bar candidates. These days, I’m conducting review classes via digital platform, mainly for UV graduates, but a lot more barristers nationwide are joining the free sessions every Monday evening for 33 sessions. This week is the 15th session and this will be up to February next year.

Why am I doing this despite the difficulty of doing research, preparing my materials, and conducting classes every Monday evening without compensation? The answer is simple. I’m paying back my alma mater. I graduated from Gullas Law School as a full academic scholar and I didn’t pay a single centavo to the university. I was a very poor working student who had to work as court interpreter from morning till late afternoon from 1970 to 1974. In the evenings, I attended classes for four years. I passed the Bar without a review as I was very poor and couldn’t afford it. Now that I’m in my twilight years, I have to give back to the students of my alma mater.

I don’t ask for anything. I just asked for permission from the university administration and from the dean and associate dean. I have fifty to a hundred students attending regularly, and associate dean Atty. Darling Wagas, graciously manages the digital platform and coordinates with the participants. The grandson of Sir Dodong Gullas, Atty. Jareed, attends the classes once in a while, and some university officials like Dr. Crispy Velasco also joins us regularly. There are UV lawyers who also sneak in once in a while. The dean also visits us in between his masteral law classes. I am always inspired to give these lectures and my mainstays are always hungry for knowledge.

I am paying back to UV because I owe a lot to this great institution. It was Sir Eddie Gullas who tapped me in 1977, when I was 27, to teach in the College of Law. I never had a vast teaching experience, except a one-semester stint in SWU during my Bachelor of Arts study. It happened that our professor in Political Science ran for public office and the dean couldn’t find a replacement. He ordered me to take over even as I didn’t graduate yet. I became the teacher of my classmates, handling seven subjects in Political Science. It turned out to be my best preparation for Law school. The best way to learn more is to teach.

It was here in UV that I became the professor of the late Cerge Remonde, who became a Cabinet Secretary in the Arroyo administration. Mike Rama also became my student in Political Law. Then the dean asked me to teach one of the most difficult subjects, Wills and Succession, a subject that only my favorite Civil Law professor, Atty. Teddy Almase could teach with the highest degree of excellence. Congressman Eddie Gullas trusted me so much beyond what my mind could ever grasp. I did my best but I knew that I was so young and so unprepared. Today, I have come back to teach what I really mastered since 1977, Labor Law.

This is my tribute to my alma mater and my expression of gratitude to Sir Eddie, Sir Dodong, Ma’am Sering Gullas-Lucero, and their children who are now managing the university. It’s never enough but at the very least, I have come back to the bosom of the university that nurtured me in my most difficult years of struggles and difficulties. The Gullases taught me one golden nugget and that is gratitude. There can never be honor without gratefulness. I told my children that the G in Gullas is Gratitude.