The Role of UP Law in Society

8/3/2019 The Role of UP Law in Society

1/24

1

The Role of UP Law in SocietyUP Law Centennial Lecture

19 January 2012

Senator Edgardo J. AngaraChair

UP Law Centennial Commission

The UP College of Law celebrates its centenary

three years after the rest of the University. Strangely,

the UP Board of Regents was reluctant to establish a

college of law despite the Charters authority, and so

implicit a suggestion, that it do so. The initial

reluctance may be viewed in a favorable light by our

distinguished rivals in the other schools but we,

alumni of UP Law, think it was ill advised.


2/24

2

George Malcolm, who would become the first

UP Law dean, thought it reflected a negative

colonial view of native capabilities or the Filipinos

unsuitability for the practice of law.

The colonial authorities, of course, were wrong.

The success of many of our alumni in the practice of

law, or in using its discipline in other fields, attests

to the flaw in their colonial assessment.


3/24

3

Malcolm, like a lawyer, naturally took a

circuitous route. He convinced the American and

European Young Mens Christian Association

(YMCA) to offer a law curriculum in English.

For lack of a law school using English as a

medium of instruction in the country, the YMCA

opened a law school in 1910 under the management

of its English department. Classes were held in the

Manila High School building in Intramuros.


4/24

4

Perhaps reflecting a disinclination for math and

the exact sciences, the public responded

enthusiastically to YMCAs law offering. This may

have changed the minds of the universitys Board of

Regents.

The following year, the Board established the

UP College of Law. On July 11, 1911, the college

formally opened to teach 109 students in the first

year, and 29 sophomores who took their first year in

the YMCA. A very lawyerly start, one might say, we

started by poaching.


5/24

5

Indeed, in the next hundred years, the quickness

and sharpness, or rather as we lawyers would say,

the celerity and acuity, of UP lawyers would become

legendary.

The first graduating class produced Manuel

Roxas, the first President of the Republic; Ricardo

Paras, Jr., Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; and

Senator Alejandro de Guzman. Eulogio Benitez

served in the House of Representatives; Emilio

Hilado and Quirino Abad Santos became famous

judges; and Feliciano Ocampo, public service

commissioner.


6/24

6

This tradition of public service continues to this

day, in all the branches of government. As nowhere

else, you will see constant shifting among the

alumni, from private to public life, and back again.

As though the UP lawyer feels he has dues to pay to

society for the privilege of his education, in part at

the public expense.


7/24

7

The college also produced notable leaders

outside the legal profession: in the police, education,

the arts, in a wide array of businesses and even

religion. The college would have produced five

presidents had Fidel V. Ramos, a member of class

58, opted to continue the study of law rather than

switch to Westpoint.

Thus, Conrado Benitez, Class 16, co-founded

the Philippine Womens University in 1919, the first

university for women in Asia.


8/24

8

Three decades later, Manuel Chan, Class 31,

and Carmelino Alvendia Sr., Class 30, established

the Manuel Luis Quezon University (MLQU),

distinguished particularly in the teaching of law to

this day. Alvendia went on to establish the Quezon

City Academy in 1964. Another characteristic of the

UP lawyer: untiring dedication. Loida Nicolas-

Lewis, founded Lewis College in her home province

of Sorsogon in 1999 in honor of her late husband, the

famous American entrepreneuri.


9/24

9

Other graduates, too many to mention, went on

to lead other learning institutions, in the capital and

in the provinces.

In the arts, the college produced distinguished

alumni: Jose Aruego Jr., a writer and illustrator of

childrens booksii, and Belinda Ty Casper, novelist,

literary criticiii. Other published novelists include

Esteban Javellana (Without Seeing the Dawn);

Sancho B. Almeda (The Filipino Dream) and

Gizela M. Gonzales Montinola (Where the Children

Are).


10/24

10

Fidel Sicam became a name in literary circles as a

Palanca-award winning playwright and director of

dramatic arts.

This great secular institution produced notable

men and women of the faith as well: Father

Constantino Nieva; Father Art Ferrer; Sister Mary

Tarcila of the Order of the Good Shepherd; Sister

Sonia S. Aldeguer of the Order of the Sacred Heart;

and Sister Leticia Allado of the Religious of the Good

Shepherd.


11/24

11

Our alumni in business defy exhaustive

enumeration, too many to start mentioning. They

became builders of business empires in real estate,

insurance, energy, mining, communications and

transportation to name just a few of the fields of

their successes.Allow me to mention Francisco

Ortigas Jr., Class 31.

In media, Don Eugenio Lopez Sr., established

what has become ABS-CBN, while Felipe Gozon and

his daughter, Anna Teresa Gozon-Abrogar, founded

and continue to own and run GMA-7.


12/24

12

The College of Law also served as an ordnance

platformClass 41 enlisted in the Army when war

broke out and joined the underground after the Fall

of Bataan. Peace drew law alumni to law

enforcement in the police.

The college produced military leaders on both

sides of the greatest conflict the Republic has

undergone. Macapanton Jun Abbas, Jr. became

secretary general of the Bangsa Moro National

Liberation Front, bringing to that struggle his

scholarly interests as reflected in his thesis Jihad

and International Law.


13/24

13

But history is not enough; the future beckons to

the next generation of UP lawyers. Can they do as

distinguished alumni have donefor country, for

college and, being lawyers, pretty well for

themselves?

That depends on the Colleges ability to evolve

its teaching methods to meet the changing and

mounting challenges facing the practice of the

profession.


14/24

14

The threat, or the promise, of specialization has

pushed the great generalists to the side.

Globalization has aggravated this trend. As the 2010

Financial Times Global Education Report notes: In

todays world, a Superman-lawyerone who

knows everything about anything (or at least claims

to) is viewed with skepticism and disregarded in

favor of the specialist.


15/24

15

Those who know more about a narrower field,

indeed, offer a tremendous advantage to business in

legal conflicts. And if a business in legal trouble

wants to cover its flanks, it should hire specialists in

other fields. It is like that in warfare, and business is

war.

The worst challenge to the legal professions

very survival is the Economic Crisis of 2008 whose

effects linger to this day. When the crisis hit, the first

to go in corporate spending programs, after

advertising, was the legal budget.


16/24

16

Frankly it has always been like that; when

lawyers win a case, the client thinks he was always

right anyway. When lawyers lose a case, it is the

lawyers fault for losing a winning cause. It is worse

when good legal work keeps legal problems away

from the client. Who wants to pay for what did not

happen?


17/24

17

Then, since law can be readthough not

masteredby anyone literate, management

consultants mine lawyers and pass off as their own

insights the hard learned knowledge of their legal

staffs. And since law, by its nature is and should be,

routine and repetitivehence the preeminence of

precedent in lawit is vulnerable to

computerization. Soon fields of legal learning and

practice can be packaged and sold like movies in

DVDs or, worse, pirated versions.


18/24

18

There is no way to fight this trend but to extend

the same mental strengths required to master law to

other fields as well.

Harvard Law School emphasizes its ability to

offer joint degree programs, which allows students

to earn another degree from any of Harvards other

professional schools. Yale Law School employs a

similar strategy, boasting that it encourages an

interdisciplinary approach to the law. Its joint

degree can be pursued in another university. In

short, lawyers must take the competition to the

enemys territory.


19/24

19

This is the age of Global Law Schools.

Opportunities to study abroad are no longer a part

of a grant but a component of mainstream

curriculum.

Harvard has exchange programs with the

Geneva Faculty of Law, Sydney Law, Fudan Law in

Shanghai, Tokyo University, Fundao Getulio

Vargas Schools in Brazil, Chile Law in Santiago, and

the Witwatersrand School of Law in Johannesburgiv.

This development has become globally epidemic.


20/24

20

But Philippine teaching and practice of law remains

impervious to it.

Our profession firmly discourages foreign

entanglements. Foreign legal scholars may not teach

credited courses in Philippine law schools, let alone

practice before our courts.

You can go, if you want, to take your masters

abroad, but it will have a negligible, if any, effect on

your practice back home.


21/24

21

You can take the bar in New York but not in

Manila. The Philippine legal profession, despite its

evident talents, fears international competition.

These are the challenges facing the future

teaching and practice of law. I believe that this time,

the UP College of Law can lead, rather thanfollow, in

meeting these challenges.


22/24

22

Addressing the critical climate of the rule of law

today, it is true that great views are being expressed

across the board from all the law schools, with at

least equal excellence, penetration and wisdom as

any expressed from here.

But let us not judge law schools by the

eloquence of the occasional practitioner in a moment

of constitutional crisis. No law school can claim the

erudite Pepe Diokno as its own. He read the law

during the war yet passed the bar with the highest

distinction to become one of the greatest

constitutionalists of our country.


23/24

23

Law schools are not established to create great

men for great moments, but to make excellent

everyday lawyers to protect good men in the

ordinary course of law.

Those who, from that everyday but necessary

vocation, rise to greatness will owe their eminence

not from the school they attended, but from the

conscience, values and the wisdom they acquire on

their own.

Thank you.


24/24

24

Reference:

i

http://www.balitangamerica.tv/the-filipino-champion-loida-nicholas-lewis/http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/TLC-Beatrice-International-Holdings-Inc-company-History.html

ii His book, Herman the Helper, was an Honor Book for theBoston Globe-Horn Book Award in 1974. The picture book waswritten by Robert Kraus and illustrated by Jose Aruego and

ArianeDewey.WeHide, You Seek, and Dance Away (written byGeorge Shannon) were nominated for Nebraska's Golden SowerAward. Three books, illustrated by Ariane Dewey and JoseAruego, are included in Barnes & Noble's Reader's Catalog of theBest 40,000+ Best Books in Print. These include Gregory, theTerrible Eater,Mitchell Is Moving, andMushroom in the Rain.

iii Her publications include: The Transparent Sun and Other

Stories (1963); The Peninsulars (1964, novel); The Secret Runnerand Other Stories (1974); The Three Cornered Sun (1979, novel);Dread Empire (1980); Hazards of Distance (1981); Fortress in thePlaza (1985, novella); Awaiting Tresspass: Wings of Stone (1986,novel); Ten Thousand Seeds (1987, novel); A Small Party in aGarden (1988, novella)

iv Harvard Law School Study Abroad Program, available at

http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/degrees/special-programs/study-abroad/index.html (last visited Apr. 12, 2011).

Documents

The Role of UP Law in Society