For the next four Sundays, lawyers-to-be (although most will not be, at least not immediately, the passing percentage being roughly 20%, or about 1 in every 5 examinees) from all over the Philippines will be trooping to the De La Salle University campus in Taft Avenue to take the annual bar exams. It has the atmosphere of a fiesta cum college pep rally, complete with banners, confetti, marching bands and cheering well-wishers, adding to the pressure and distraction of the examinees.

However, I read in the Inquirer that the Manila city government, led by Mayor Alfredo Lim, himself a lawyer, has reined in such activities to ensure peace and quiet for the bar takers. Good move. Bar exam days are little more than an excuse for law students, alumni and sundry supporters to hang around the bar exam area, block traffic, get drunk and engage in the occasional frat rumble to liven up a dull afternoon. All part of the so-called law schools’ “bar operations”. “Bar”, get it ? Read the rest of this entry »

Sign an online petition for Tara and other victims of violent crimes:http://gopetition.com/petitions/justice-for-tara-santelices Please spread the word to others

It took awhile for me to write this post, for the simple reason that gathering my thoughts and stilling my feelings was so difficult and painful. I hesitate to write about it even now, as I know I can’t do it dispassionately.

When I read Cathy Guballa’s article on the shooting of Tara Santelices, I wave of emotions went though me. I was discombobulated (there, I finally had a chance to use that word).

But truly, I could barely breathe while I was reading it. I’m hyper-ventilating even now. I remember my own painful experience so many years ago when I first got word of my son’s mishap. I was stunned and disbelieving, even as I ran around like a madman trying to find a way to save his life. I can honestly say that I know how Ms. Santilices’ parents and loved ones must feel. I’ve been there.

The vicious crime hit another very personal chord as I too have a daughter, also a recent graduate of ADMU, who also plays the guitar in a band and who has kept me up nights waiting for her to return from many a “gig”. Not her fault. She has every right to live her life as pleases, within certain societal and familial boundaries, of course, and for which I hope we have properly set the guideposts. But my daughter has every right to stay out late, to explore the world, to engage it on her own terms. And to come home safely to us. Read the rest of this entry »

Humanae Vitae (Latin for “Of Human Life”) is an encyclical written by Pope Paul VI and promulgated on July 25, 1968. Subtitled “On the Regulation of Birth”, it re-affirms the traditional teaching of the Roman Catholic Church regarding abortion, contraception, and other issues pertaining to human life.

Last Friday’s 40th anniversary of the encyclical was celebrated by the Philippine Catholic faithful with a prayer rally at the University of Santos Tomas. Four decades after its issuance, Humanae Vitae continues to engender much impassioned debate.

Police estimates placed the crowd at 12,000. The speakers included Philippine boxing hero Manny Pacquiao, who said: “Siguro, kung nag-family planning ang mga magulang ko. Wala tayong Manny Pacquiao ngayon. Pang-apat na anak ako ng aking magulang” (If my parents practiced family planning, we would have no Manny Pacquiao today. I am the fourth child.)

The recent discussion is particularly relevant in the light of renewed assaults by the institutional Church against the reproductive health bills pending in Congress.

The influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines is opposed to the bills for allegedly advocating “morally unacceptable” population control methods including some which it claims would induce abortion. Unfortunately, the way the CBCP presents its arguments has generated a lot of heat but little light. Read the rest of this entry »

An Inquirer article caught my eye which will cause not a few raised eyebrows and guffaws among my esteemed compañeros and compañeras in the profession.

In a recent resolution, Judge Medel Arnaldo B. Belen of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Calamba, Laguna was reprimanded by the Supreme Court for unbecoming conduct. It seems the good magistrate told a lawyer appearing before him that since he (the lawyer) did not graduate from the UP College of Law, he and the judge could not be equals. He was referring to Atty. Melvin D.C. Mane, who referred to himself as “a proud graduate of MLQU”. Read the rest of this entry »

Has the internet made us stupid, a recent article in the Atlantic asks. The author, blogger Nicolas Carr, frets about the effect the internet has had on his thinking processes, on the way it has rewired his brains’ very circuitry.

Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link.

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon.

I have the same problem and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I haven’t read a book in its entirety in ages, even though I keep buying them. I have piles of books at my bedside table which, when I got them, I knew I would devour in one reading. Months, even years after, I haven’t gone beyond a few chapters, at best. I stop and start and finally give up at some point, distracted by the flickering text and images on my monitor. Read the rest of this entry »