Foot and Fire

My dusty diaries tell of my ten-year journey  so that I am still keeping my schedule the traditional way!          I am aching to write about my ten years as a lawyer in public service. Alas, I did not keep a journal. It is no accident that every writer has one, but can you blame this soul when scribbling is a luxury since post-bar era and typing is the trend since day one in my work area? But I just can't give up, so an idea just came about. I dusted off my ten schedule books that served me from February 2005 until December 2014.      In my schedule book s are the cases for trial. It is a tragedy that the cases for mediation were not entered there; they will just fade away unless my memory can salvage them . I started with the notebook-sized moss-green book with gold-inscribed print: 2005 diary. It seems I need not move forward from there because on the inside cover, I copied from the wall of the old MTCC sala, these profound word...

Two weeks ago, we had our mandatory continuing legal education in Manila and aside from our chief at the Public Attorney's Office, two top government officials were invited: the DOJ chief and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And what they have in common is that they are all women. It was a rare ocassion, listening to the three women manning the top agencies of the branches of our government. Of course, I was all so pleased just by knowing that women are now accepting the highest ranks in their respective league. However, a hindsight struck me: Will their being women enough for them to become maternal, productive and cooperative kind of of leaders? Will they perpetuate the patriarchal leadership? In generations that passed, patriarchal society has been proven to be destructive for having leaders who are thirsty for power and controlling by use of power. Thus, the crafting of the book,  " 48 Laws of Power, " which were all based on male-dominated societi...

Every law student is not a happy reader of the Supreme Court Reports Annotated or simply called SCRA. Deep inside the law student's psyche, the SCRA is already associated with the voluminous pages to read and recite in class.  As a law student I read SCRA because I should prepare for a quiz or long examination. There is no pleasure in reading the cases decided by the Supreme Court because they are either lengthy or because they are part of an examination. I only get to be hooked with SCRA every time I chanced to pass upon the annotation which discusses some fine points of the decision vis-a-vis established principles in law. I often heard my professors sigh over the fact that most of the SCRA cases are of rape, murder and other heinous crime. This is of course the case because these heinous crimes bear the heaviest penalty and given the nature of the penalty, there is of course a need to closely review the findings of the lower courts.  I heard former justices...