Accents
Contemplating social justice
Justice is a cherished word, but its reality is elusive to the great masses of our people. The foregoing statement embodies the heart and soul of a new lawyers' association, LAWYERS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. Its organization last June 11, a day before Independence Day, ushered an early celebration to expand the frontiers of freedom, in this case, freedom from injustice for "the least of our brethren" -- that is the poor.
Being a backseat driver to my husband Rudy (only insofar as helping with his eyesight to avoid collision when cars come charging in front, back or side of ours), I found myself a passive audience in a lawyers' forum. Talks were so legalese I felt out of place.
Atty. Neri Colmenares, legal counsel of the Bayan Muna party-list, announced that the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) will hold its 2006 congress in the Philippines, specifically in Davao in November. Participating are several lawyers' associations: Committee on the Defense of Lawyers (CODAL), Concerned Lawyers for Civil Liberties (CLCL), Civil Liberties Union of the Philippines (CLUP), and many more. CODAL counts among its members the Public Interest Law Center (PILC), Pro-People Law Network (PLN), and the Pro-Labor Legal Assistance Center (PLACE). Also participating in the Davao congress are lawyers in Iloilo, or on a larger scale, in Western Visayas, especially when it was bruited about that attendance would count towards earning units in the MCLE or the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education for practicing lawyers.
Discussions veered down home when Atty. Colmenares mentioned about organizing. He said lawyers' organizations go by two types: the CODAL way and the UPLM type (or how the Union of People's Lawyers in Mindanao had organized). The first is a loose organization of lawyers defending lawyers, i.e., the legal profession is out to defend its own. It was born after a series of killings and harassments of lawyers, not to mention assassination attempts. The UPLM, on the other hand, is a structured organization with its own laws and by-laws and a set of officers.
An insightful discussion about organizing ensued in the core of lawyers present: Attorneys Joshua Alim, Janne Baterna, Dan Cartagena, Sulpicio Gamosa, Romeo Gerochi, and Rodolfo Lagoc. They mulled over a name for the association. But first, what is the essence, the focus, the purpose of the new association? What is its distinctive face? This was when the attorneys went on bashing social injustice, and gave birth to LAWYERS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE.
To strengthen the spirit behind the association's name, Atty. Lagoc exhumed from memory the words of the late Senator Jose Diokno in a speech before an audience of lawyers: "If we cannot be the voice of the poor, the voice of the weak, the voice of the oppressed, then gentlemen, we lawyers are indeed worse than whores." The venerable senator debunked the pecuniary interest of lawyers, those who defend cases that make of them millionaires overnight even if so doing would mean stifling the voice of the poor, the weak, and the oppressed. Relevant to invoke at this point the cliché: Those who have less in life should have more in law. I say, a farce in the real world where social injustice holds sway. A farce because it is a cliché and that's it -- more honored in the breach than in practice to use another cliché. Indeed a farce, unless we bid goodbye to a society that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer.
An all-encompassing concept of social justice as defined by Justice Jose P. Laurel was adopted by the association: "Social justice is neither communism, nor despotism, nor atomism, nor anarchy, but the humanization of laws and the equalization of social and economic forces by the State so that justice in its rational and objectively secular conception may at least be approximated. Social justice means the promotion of the welfare of all the people, the adoption by the Government of measures calculated to ensure economic stability of all the component elements of society, through the maintenance of a proper economic and social equilibrium in the interrelations of the members of the community, constitutionally, through the exercise of powers underlying the existence of all governments on the time-honored principle of salus populi est supremo lex [the good/well-being/health of the people is the highest law]."
The core of lawyers mentioned above call on fellow lawyers regardless of political persuasion, school, club, or frat alliances to join the LAWYERS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. The association is meant to decry iniquity, defend human rights, and dignify the common man -- objectives that demand strong legal and moral force. Are the members and would-be members up to these? Aye, there's the rub.
Besides legal responsibility, there is such a thing as moral responsibility. The legal and the moral must blend. Only then can we shout to high heavens salus populi est supremo lex.
(Comments to lagoc @hargray.com)