Tag Archives: lawyers

Qwertyman No. 216: The Law on Trial

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Qwertyman for Monday, September 21, 2026

LIKE MANY young Filipinos of my postwar generation, I once dreamt of becoming a lawyer. Alongside medicine, it looked to be the most challenging and the most rewarding if not the noblest profession one could get into. Medicine was also a public service, yes, but one basically remained a doctor forever, while a lawyer could go on to business, politics, or the Supreme Court. It occurred to my teenage mind that the only thing a good lawyer needed was a sharp brain—and the gift of gab, which I thought I had, at least the second if not the first.

Indeed my father Jose Sr., reputed to be the smartest boy in our island province, also wanted to be a lawyer, but was too poor to become one. So having the wits and the words but not the degree, he ended up writing speeches and drafting documents for politicians and bosses who were lawyers. 

Much later, it took my younger sister and brother to achieve his dream. Myself, I entered college on the red carpet of the First Quarter Storm, and with the way the country was going, I had decided even in high school that there was no future for the law in a lawless place, and chose Engineering (and, when I failed my Math, eventually English). The imposition of martial law and my subsequent incarceration hardened that perception: the law was for the powerful, but certainly not for me.

EDSA and the restoration of our civil liberties did much to change that. I followed and listened to such luminaries as Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, Jovito Salonga, Joker Arroyo, Rene Saguisag, Fr. Joaquin Bernas, Jose W. Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, Haydee Yorac, and others of their caliber and character, and I was convinced and relieved that the lamp of truth, reason, and justice would finally shine brightly over our benighted nation.

And then the 2000s came in, and with them the long backslide into the morass of corruption and authoritarianism—much of it enabled and justified by a new generation of lawyers with far fewer scruples than their predecessors. Amidst this transactionalism, my old pessimism has returned, moderated only by my knowledge that many good and honest lawyers remain to carry on the fight.

The Senate’s current impeachment hearings in the case of Vice President Sara Duterte led me to wonder how they might affect young students contemplating a future in the legal profession, and how the general public perceives lawyers and the law itself today, given what they’ve seen.

I posed these questions to some lawyer-friends who have also followed the trial keenly. First, what impression of lawyers has the trial so far left on the general public?

“Negative overall,” says Lawyer A. “Because of the way the Senate is conducting the impeachment trial, the public was collectively exposed to adversarial litigation. So DDS partisans would praise the defense lawyers and bash opposing counsel, and vice versa, not necessarily with any real appreciation of the legal points made. The people are provided with new information but we doubt if these were properly processed. More than anything else, we sense this exposure to adversarial lawyering has further fed political polarization.”

“Overall negative,” concurs Lawyer B. “We cannot blame those who came away thinking even more negatively of lawyers.” But, she explains further, “It is easy, from the outside, to assume that a lawyer believes every word he says. That his argument is his opinion, that his client’s cause is his own. More often it is not. Lawyers are frequently called to carry out a client’s instructions, to give shape to a vision that is not his and to set aside, quietly, what he might feel or think about the matter. It is not necessarily being a mercenary, it is the job. Of course, none of that spares you from the consequences of taking up the cause of the genuinely indefensible. You must be prepared for the scorn of your fellow lawyers as well as of the public. The profession does insist that everyone deserves a defense but it does not promise you will be admired for providing it.”

But there were bright spots as well. Lawyer B continues that “The most brilliant moments of the trial that made me proud to be a lawyer are actually the Chill Chel moments. With decades in courtroom experience behind him and brilliance of thought and communication, he showed the nation what a real grasp of the law can do, and how cutting and effective a sharp lawyer whose skills have been honed can be, all without the table-pounding and the theatrics and the condescension.”

For Lawyer A, “The oral arguments of Diokno and Poa and the presentations of the amici curiae, precisely because they were non-adversarial, provided the quietude so needed for important ideas to be clearly presented. Kapunan also provided valuable lessons for younger lawyers on the delicate balancing act a litigator often has to strike between pure trial advocacy and theatrics.”

The theatrics are of particular importance, given that, for over a month now, a Filipino audience of over 100 million viewers—about 70 million of them registered voters—has been privy to an almost-daily dose of courtroom drama. And like theater-goers, what most of the rest of us see and look out for is the performance. All the Senate’s a stage, and everyone stepping on to it is deemed an actor in a role playing someone not quite himself or herself in real life but something larger, more sincere, more logical, more certain of the ineluctable truth. The prosecution knows that, the defense knows that. 

So in a public arena such as an impeachment trial, where ultimate guilt or innocence might come down to perception rather than fact, would good lawyering require more than a solid grasp of the law, but a performative aspect as well, ie, the awareness that one is addressing not just the court but a viewership of millions? 

“Yes,” says Lawyer A, “but with an important caveat. The ‘performative’ aspect should not be drama for drama’s sake, but as a tool toward good communication and education.” Adds Lawyer C: “What makes impeachment cases unique is the fact that it is driven and decided by elected politicians rather than career judges. The performative aspect then of lawyering becomes extremely important. The Congressmen on three-year terms and Senators on six-year tenures need the votes. They have to get up, dress up, and show up, so that their constituencies will continue supporting them.”

All this leads me to think that it’s not really just VP Sara and not even the Senate itself on trial, but the law and the legal profession itself. As they say in show business, abangan.

Qwertyman No. 183: Lawyers for the People

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Qwertyman for Monday, February 2, 2026

I MIGHT have become a lawyer in another life, given that, back in the sixties, the profession of law still carried with it a certain gravitas, a presumption of not only intellectual brilliance but a commitment to public service. The best of legal minds found themselves in the Supreme Court and the Senate, and the latter was studded with such stars as Jovito Salonga, Jose Diokno, Arturo Tolentino, and Tecla San Andres Ziga. (To Gen Z’ers unfamiliar with these names, Diokno topped both the bar and CPA exams—despite the fact that he never completed his law studies, for which the Supreme Court had to give him special dispensation, and was also too young to be given his CPA license, for which he had to wait a few years. Ziga was the first woman bar topnotcher.) 

My father studied to be a lawyer, but other priorities got in the way; his dream would be achieved by my sister Elaine and my brother Jess. As for me, activism and martial law happened, and in that environment where the law as we knew it suddenly didn’t seem to matter, I lost any urge to enter law school, and chose between English and history instead.

Thankfully, many others saw things differently, and now make up the cream of the profession, appearing on lists such as the Philippines’ Top 100 and Asia’s Top 500 Lawyers. Their skills are formidable—I’ve been told that some senior lawyers are so sharp (or so, shall we say, highly persuasive) that they can get a Supreme Court decision reversed—and their fees will certainly reflect that.

But my utmost admiration is reserved for lawyers who have devoted their careers to that portion of the Lawyer’s Oath that says: “I shall conscientiously and courageously work for justice, as well as safeguard the rights and meaningful freedoms of all persons, identities and communities. I shall ensure greater and equitable access to justice.” 

No better group of lawyers represents that than the Free Legal Assistance Group or FLAG, founded in 1974 by Diokno himself, then newly released from prison, together with Lorenzo M. Tanada, Joker P. Arroyo, Alejandro Lichauco, and Luis Mauricio, all fellow members of the Civil Liberties Union of the Philippines (CLUP), as martial law entrenched itself and civil liberties became increasingly threatened. 

In the half-century since then—documented in FLAG’s anniversary book Frontliners for Human Rights: FLAG of the People @50 (FLAG, 2025)—FLAG has worked to locate and release desaparecidos, or persons abducted by State agents, fight the death penalty, defend victims of extrajudicial killings, and contest the Anti-Terrorism law, among other key initiatives.

“From its birth, FLAG has kept faith in its philosophy of developmental legal advocacy—the adept use of the law and its processes and institutions not only to secure rights and freedoms but also to change the social structures that trigger and perpetuate injustice,” FLAG reports. “Over 50 years, FLAG has handled over 9,052 cases and assisted over 9,591 clients throughout the country. These figures are merely a fraction of the cases FLAG has handled, and the clients FLAG has served nationwide. The number of FLAG clients excludes the communities and barangays who had experienced massacres and hamletting, urban poor communities whose homes had been demolished, and landless farmers and tenant farmer associations, whose numbers are impossible to count. Overall, FLAG’s rate of success ranged from a low of 66.89% (in 1989) to a high of 79.11% in 1990. On average, FLAG has won 7 out of every 10 cases it has handled, or an impressive success rate of 72.92%.

“FLAG has always provided its legal services, free of charge. In line with its core mandate, FLAG renders free legal assistance primarily to those who cannot afford, or cannot find, competent legal services. FLAG counts clients among the urban poor, students, indigenous peoples, farmers, fishers, political prisoners, and non-unionized or non-organized workers.”

These gains have come at a huge personal cost—no less than 14 FLAG lawyers have died in the line of duty, presumably at the hands of State agents. FLAG lawyers have been Red-tagged, harassed, and put under surveillance. 

That hasn’t stopped its lawyers from pursuing their mission under its current Chairman, former Supreme Court spokesman Atty. Theodore Te. The need for their services certainly remains, with the Philippines ranking 38th out of 170 countries in the world in the 2023 Atlas of Impunity released by the Eurasia Group for “impunity,” defined as” the exercise of power without accountability, which becomes, in its starkest form, the commission of crimes without punishment.”

We can only wish Ted Te and his courageous colleagues well, as they operate in an environment more complex in many ways than martial law.

Speaking of law books, I’d like to recommend another book that was launched just recently, Constitutional Law for Filipinos: Mga Konsepto, Doktrina at Kaso (Central Books, 2026) by Atty. Roel Pulido. One of our leading environmental lawyers, Atty. Pulido teaches Constitutional and Environmental Law at Arellano University, where he also serves as Director of the Office of Legal Aid. 

“This is a project designed to be a learning aid,” says Roel. “It has a few unique features. First, It does not explain each and every Article of the Constitution. Instead, it focuses on Constitutional law concepts. Each concept is explained in simple language. Then Supreme Court rulings explaining the concepts are quoted. And in a box, I have placed a short and simple Filipino explanation of the concept. Second, the cases are quoted to explain and elaborate each concept. Instead of including all the convoluted issues in one case, it focuses only on the topic at hand. Third, the doctrine of each case cited is summarized in a sentence in both English and Filipino.”

We need more books like this that make the ideas and the language of the law more accessible to ordinary Filipinos. That’s the first requisite of legal literacy, which is also a form of empowering people. FLAG and Atty. Pulido are the kind of lawyers I would have wanted to become.