No master but law

Last Sunday was the culmination of the Bar examinations with a total of 8,752 aspiring lawyers, over a thousand more examinees compared to the exam last year. It is no doubt that the legal profession is still a popular choice for college graduates in this country.

My childhood ambition was to become a priest, then a doctor, then a scientist, then a stage actor, and then finally a lawyer. The last one arose from a comment by a Cebu provincial official (I think he was a Provincial Board member and a lawyer) after I won first prize representing UP High in a province-wide oratorical contest sponsored by Capitol in the early ‘90s. The official urged me to become a lawyer.

Today, perhaps I have some disappointments about the legal profession and about many things that seem not right in our legal system, but generally I am quite satisfied and have no regrets. There’s this common phrase: “Many people hate lawyers until they need one.”

Regarding the challenges that lawyers and the legal system face these days, allow me to yield this space to a good portion of the statement released last Sunday by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines through its president Atty. Abdiel Dan Elijah S. Fajardo:

“Now, the existential question must be asked. Do we see our admission to the bar as the gateway to riches and glory, or do we see it as an opportunity to serve, always mindful of Justice JBL Reyes’ reminder that as lawyers we ‘have no master but law, no guide but conscience, no aim but justice?’”

“Is litigation still an attractive proposition? We ask this in the context of at least thirty-five (35) lawyers, prosecutors, and judges, having been felled by the assassin’s bullets since the killing of lawyers began to be seen as par for the course. Our count started with the ambush of Atty. Rogelio Bato, Jr., in Tacloban City on August 23, 2016, until this most recent assassination of Atty. Benjamin Ramos in Negros Occidental on November 6, 2018. That is more than one IBP member getting killed every month, which makes our profession one of the most dangerous professions to practice in this country.”

“Thus, even as we celebrate overcoming the last hurdle towards becoming a member of the legal profession, we must reiterate our collective call for government to arrest this growing impunity in the violence, intimidation and harassment being perpetrated against lawyers. This is a matter of duty for government, and a matter of right for lawyers under international law.”

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I welcome the proposed resolution endorsed by Cebu City Councilor Sisinio Andales donating a bigger piece of property at the South Road Properties to the Supreme Court for the construction of a P1.5-billion judicial complex. According to a report, the city government had previously donated a 7,000-square-meter lot to the Supreme Court for the construction of a Court of Appeals building but the SC is asking for 8,000 square meters more in order to accommodate a building complex.

The dream is to have a complex of buildings that will house the Regional Trial Courts and the Municipal Trial Courts in Cities and the Court of Appeals – Visayas Station. It should as well have a building for the regional, provincial and city prosecution offices.

If realized, the convenience to the lives of litigants, lawyers, judges, court staff, and the justice system as a whole would be so valuable that this complex would be worth every tax penny of the Cebu City government and the Supreme Court.