let the law spark

After decades of silence, I decided to write for public consumption. Writing, of course, has been a daily dose for me. There are just too many legal briefs to prepare, and deadlines to beat. Lawyers do these for a fee, except in rare pro bono cases.

But lawyers too are citizens, as Manny Valdehuesa, a fellow columnist, aptly said. The practice of law is not a rehearsal of some sort that you can undo several times over. Whenever and wherever justice has failed, there are some innocent souls who languish in the damp and cold concrete prison cells, and the guilty ones who, having the financial resource, go scot-free. When this happens, a social fabric is torn apart. Society weakens.

Lawyers are not gladiators in court, to be paid handsomely if they fought well in battle. Law, to be a truly effective tool for social order and peace, requires competent and conscientious practitioners, people who advocate the higher ends of justice, sans the fee.

Definitely, we do not need the bearers of the law who are mum amid the spate of bribery in the justice system – in the law enforcement, in the prosecution, and yes, even in the bench. These are lawyers who are only up to fattening their pockets, a practice of law without a social conscience.

Look around. Even the blind could see, and even the deaf could hear the cries of injustice.

There is Taglimao, a barangay which is near the city proper in terms of distance but would take an hour to reach due to bad roads, roads which are fit for off-road racing. Do the city officials know that Taglimao is part of their governance? To make matter worse, the mostly unlettered residents are being harassed by barangay officials either by threat of bodily harm or legal suits. That is plain terrorism.

Does anybody know that within our protected watershed areas, there is a plan to construct a cassava processing plant which threatens our potable water with cyanide which is a by-product of cassava? Who will stop this incessant threat to our environment?

For the incompetence of the prosecution to smell the fabrication of a case, one Geronimo Banac was indicted for rape, jailed for seven years in Lumbia city jail, and finally acquitted and released for lack of evidence. Who will now compensate him for the loss of his dignity and sense of pride?

Take our lawmakers. They extended the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law up to June 30, 2009, with a condition: lands would be covered under agrarian reform voluntarily. They must be joking. No landowners, not even the church, would voluntarily give up their lands. Who will now fight for the cause of farmers who, in the language of then Raul Manglapus, “have been in the bondage of the lands they till”?

In a state of injustice, the bearers of the law must advocate, and fight ferociously as gladiators, in the court of justice, and in the court of public opinion as well. But unlike gladiators of old times, the lawyers should bear witness to truth, law, and justice, without expecting anything in return but the altruistic feeling that they too as citizens, have helped keep social order and communal peace.

There is a joke about lawyers. In the genesis story, God created the earth, and gave order to the universe. But before there was order, chaos presided. Lawyers, who preside on chaos, therefore must have preceded creation.

This is an unfortunate joke, a virtual verdict of the law practice in the Philippines.  True indeed, there are misfits within the ranks.  Go to Manila, and you see  lawyers who put up a small mobile office to solicit notarial services.  There are those who are retained by drug-lords and gambling lords and do no lawyering duties except negotiating for the release of drug pushers or gambling dens operators, and inevitably bribe government officials. Others still are bragging in public about their close relations with a fiscal, or a judge , and could therefore fix a case.

This kind of lawyering takes away the majesty of the law, the true and noble function of the law as instrument developed through social evolution.  Out of the chaotic earthly life, it is the law that gives order, through peace pacts among warring tribes, treaties among the present day states, and the civil and criminal laws within a nation. Take away the law, and true indeed, chaos will reign.

In a state of injustice, in the muddied waters of law and order, the law must spark; otherwise, we might go back to the evolutionary age when the fittest survive, and the weak, extinct. We would then be nothing but members of Darwin’s animal kingdom: less divine, more brutish.

In the new year 2009, let the law spark, within our hearts, specially in  the conscience of the bearers of the law.

when the law breaks down

When lawmen mauled the hapless Roberto Martinez last December 3, 2008 in a funeral parlor this city, who later was found dead near the Taguanao bridge, there can be no other exhibition of lawlessness worst than this.

We saw Jocjoc Volante brazenly lying before the senators. Every day, simple infractions of throwing garbage in the streets literally litter our city. Taxi drivers in the airport mulct passengers with the “pakyaw” basis in derogation of the rates established by the LTFRB. Even the beating red-lights in a traffic jam is a daily dose for drivers.

This disregard for the law, even how worse, can still be corrected. If there is political will, the violators can be apprehended and meted out the full force of the law.

But when it is lawmen that maul, and by circumstantial evidence, kill a civilian, then there is something terribly wrong with our justice system. Who will now protect the innocent from the criminals if the law enforcers are committing the crime, and do so in a manner so flagrantly and in the presence of so many people?

Roberto Martinez, the record reveals, got the ire of a policeman. He was slapped, and in a retaliation later, he hit the said policeman. He was later on in flight from the irate and pursuing police officers, and he went, ironically, into a funeral parlor where the vigil for the dead was going on. This being a big funeral parlor, there were many persons around presumably weeping for the dead. But they may have as well weep for the state of disorder in the Philippines.

Roberto Martinez, a witness recalled, was finally cornered by their pursuers. He raised his hands in surrender, and pleaded mercy, but bullets were pumped into his knees, causing him to fell into the ground. He was kicked and further mauled and was hauled into a vehicle. His lifeless body was found the following day near the Taguanao bridge, in barangay Indahag, this city.

One may argue that this is not the worst of the state of disorder. These policemen are plain thugs clothed in a policeman’s uniform. They may have joined the police service not on the basis of competence and qualifications, but simply of “padrino” , a system of patronage politics when one gets appointed if he has political backing. The argument may go this way: “This is an exception rather than rule; a case of few rotten tomatoes in a basket.”

Due to what happened, one may scream bloody murder. But wait for the flourish, err the pouring of hot chili in a gaping wound.

Police Director Isagani Genabe of the City, in the initial interviews said that he did not conduct the investigation yet because there has been no formal complaint lodge in his office. Imagine the innards twisting in revulsion to the statement.

The corpus delicti, the body of the crime, has been found. The lifeless body of Roberto Martinez was found, bearing bruises, stab and gunshot wounds. Confronted with the gory details, the police czar has the gall to say that the investigation will commence upon the filing of the formal complaint.

The police as a force is tasked to protect lives and properties, and to enforce the rule of law. When somebody dies of a violent death, there is obviously a criminal out there that should be apprehended. This the police must pursue. When a bomb explodes, the police must go to the site and investigate.

Or should the police wait for an explosion in its precinct or the dead body delivered in its doorsteps, and the police blotter written in blood of the victim, before the investigation may begin?

What happened to Roberto Martinez is a sad footnote in the history of the city. Yes, there have been gruesome crimes already in the past. But these crimes were committed mostly by civilians, and if ever a policeman was involved, he acted alone or in conspiracy with civilians. But this one is the worst. The lawmen conspired, and mauled their victim, in the presence of so many people who were weeping for the dead in the vigil, in the funeral parlor.

Weep we must, for the victim, for the arrogant display of authority, for the lackadaisical attitude of our police czar.

There can be no breakdown of law and order worst than this.

finding a community

the population is exploding, the internet and mobile phones have interconnected people, yet amid the noise of the crowd, there is an eerie silence inside, of being alone, and detached. and this is more true in urban centers than in the rural areas. the more crowded the area, the more tragic the sense of isolation.

 

I arrived in Los Angeles on March 2000. As the plane was descending into the LAX airport, I glanced at the wide expanse below, and yes, there was a sea of tall buildings there. As I stepped out of the airport, I realized that indeed, the six-lane road only confirmed what I saw above. Cagayan de Oro, my place of residence, is way behind by decades in terms of size, infra, population, and modernity.

 

I had a busy first month. Since, I went there with my family, there was fun and excitement in going to places I only heard of before, like the Disneyland, Griffith Park, Universal Studio, the famous Sta. Monica Beach, and so on. There was always something the eyes could feast on. LA is eons ahead of my place.

 

Yet, after satiating the senses, the soul has to be nourished. After the excitement of seeing new places, next came reality: the need to commune with people. This is basic human need that dates back even at the Garden of Eden, when it was shown that the first man could not live by paradise alone. Man is incomplete without the company of fellow humans.

 

After a month, I longed to talk to people other than our host and members of my family. We were staying in an apartment. In the compound, there were many apartments. So I often went out of the apartment waiting for any neighbor to come out from their main doors so that i could strike a conversation, and hopefully start a friendship. They did come out of their doors. To my dismay, from the main doors, they went directly to their garage, started the engine of their cars, then sped away. For several mornings, I did the routine. But there was not a neighbor I was able to talk to because they were always in a hurry.

 

Way back in my birthplace, a small barangay, with a population of not more than 500, everybody was a friend. We all had one activity, either a benefit dance, Sunday mass, basketball game, or a patin-tero at night when the moon shone. When somebody died, everybody would vigil. If there would be marriage, everybody would eat in the banquet. Our lives revolved our place. We had only one community, and everybody belonged to it. No one was isolated.

 

While there in LA, on week-ends, I would go to the public plaza where there are at least six tennis courts. I love to play tennis. I would bring along my tennis gears. But, in my almost two months stay there, I was not able to play a single game. There were tennis players, but they came to the tennis courts in pairs. As soon as they arrive, they play one or two games, and off they went. Once, twice, or thrice, I tried to approach them, but except for few exchanged words, there was nothing of substance. Like the neighbors in the compound, they too were in a hurry.

 

After almost two months, we went back to the Philippines. We arrived in Cagayan de Oro City early morning. By lunch, I called my tennis buddies, and arranged with them for tennis matches in the afternoon. We did play in the afternoon after which we drunk beers. Alas, I was back in my community.

 

Our host in LA was Aunt Nice. She has been in LA since 1993 until now. She would call – up by phone and talk to my wife, my kids, and me. She would talk over the phone for hours without stopping. When she wanted to talk to me, I usually cut short our conversation and give the phone to my kids. I could hear them giggling as if they were talking face to face. After my LA experience though, I don’t cut short anymore our phone conversation. I realized that, even after almost two decades, she has no community there. Her community is still in the Philippines, us.

 

Joanne, a cousin-in-law, has also resided in the US for six years now. When I am online in the office, her video camera would pop-up, and our chatting would take my working time. But having understood that she too has no community in the US, I oblige with the chatting.

 

There are countless souls out there, regardless of age, color, origin, and place. They too live in a place where they don’t belong, where they have no community. They remain alone in a crowded mall. They remain solitary souls in the sea of humanity.

 

A month ago, i saw a stranger in the tennis court . He had been sitting in one corner for more than an hour already, with no one to talk to. He had complete tennis gears. I approached him, and asked if we could play. He leaped from the corner, and with beaming eyes he blurted, “Sure”.

 

After a month, the stranger is not anymore a nameless face. He is now one of us. He is now in our community.

 

If only we open the gates of our small communities.