Pivotal moment

A creeping descent into madness? Perhaps, not even creeping. Instead, we are vaulting into the abyss, what with the arrest of the three young lawyers present at a police search of a bar targeted as a drug den.

What happens when lawyers show up trying to defend a client, and policemen who do not want to answer their questions resort to arresting them to shut them up? Well, it might be time to change professions! No more human rights lawyering! (As seems to have been the decision of certain government attack dogs).

Seriously though, lawyers should be allowed to perform their jobs, while allowing policemen to perform their own duties. If a lawyer shows up and asks for a search warrant, all that the cops have to do is show that damn piece of paper. If the paper is there, then the lawyers take a step back and let the policemen rummage around to their heart's content (but still observing proper protocol like 'thou shalt not plant evidence' and 'thou shalt not put valuable objects into your pocket").

If that piece of paper, however, is not around, then the cops cannot and should not take the pesky lawyers into custody. The proper thing to do would have been to desist, and wait for the judge to issue it. (Or leave is also a good option).

Where do we go from this pivotal moment? What next? If a judge issues a TRO against policemen conducting an illegal search, will they arrest the judge for hampering a drug search? Or if the judge does not believe a search warrant is proper, will police arrest the judge for conspiring with the drug lord?

Not so far-fetched now, isn't it, considering not only were those poor lawyers (by the names of Romulo Alarkon, Jan Vincent Soliven, and Lenie Rocha) arrested, not only were they charged with "obstruction of justice," but they were also slapped with the mind-boggling crime of "constructive possession" of drugs.

Stupefying. Just because a lawyer is trying to protect his client's property by asking for the observance of constitutional rights (as seems to be what the trio was doing), he gets charged with possessing all the illegal objects that may be found inside that property?

We have just witnessed legal gymnastics never before seen from the police force. Nay, not even gymnastics. This is acrobatics. The heights of absurdity that the argumentation has reached!

Score 10 for originality. Score negative 10 for being totally wrong. And that leads us to a big fat zero.

As the human rights groups have proclaimed, these attempts to curtail constitutional rights should be resisted. The Free Legal Assistance Group, the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers, and the Manlaban groups have all railed against this development.

Lawyers, who are officers of the court, should be allowed to do their jobs - which is to defend the Constitution. Protecting the rights of citizens, whether it be to life, liberty or property, is core to the noble ideals of the profession, and is an adjunct of their responsibilities as defenders of the constitution.

These are hard-won freedoms, and to stay by the wayside while the state authorities systematically (or, as in this case, opportunistically) attack these freedoms will lead to nothing but the enabling of the forces of the mighty for their right to trample upon the powerless weak.

This is a turning point. How we lawyers (and judges) comport ourselves now determines the future of the profession, as well as of the nation. So what shall you do, counsel?