Jan Brueghel the Elder. Allegory of Hearing. 1618. Oil on wood. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Right-clicked from http://www.abcgallery.com
While in practice, and like many if not all lawyers, we invoke specific laws (in a legal positivist manner, in the great grand tradition of “rule of law”) i never actually use the phrase “rule of law” in pleadings, motions, statements, etc., although it is the concept and principle we use in practice, all lawyers are trained to go by it. When i was a freshman in law school i used the phrase once in a statement or a speech, and then Law Student Government president Manny Goyena saw it, pinagalitan ako! (he scolded me!), but in a funny way, he scolded me in a funny way, and said, “ba’t mo ginagamit yan `rule of law’! Hindi natin ginagamit yan!” (“Why are you using that phrase “rule of law”, we don’t use that.”). He was ahead of me in law school, a senior student and we were both in the alliance (Students’ Rights and Welfare Alliance, i think that alliance holds the distinction of being the first to wrest from the dictatorship, during the dark years of martial rule when students were being “salvaged” and when organizations were banned, the right of students to have a student government. I think).
Anyway, if you’re ahead of me in year level and if you’re an alliance-member, you’re allowed to scold me. So i said, “eh nabasa ko sa libro eh” (“i read it in the book.”). Ngek. And he said, “Hindi natin ginagamit ‘yan, si Marcos lang gumagamit nyan.” (“we don’t use that phrase, only Marcos uses that.”). Much later on, Marvic Leonen, or i think it was someone else, explained to me that the “constitutional authoritarianism” of Marcos taught us that what is legal is not necessarily just, that’s why he, or we, don’t use that phrase.
Mga astig ano?. (I don’t have a translation of astig. They had a firm grasp of the law and how to fight for what was just).
Manny Goyena later on of course was one of the leading post-Marcos human rights lawyers, he together with friends, founded Alterlaw, i saw in Google that he’s in Geneva lawyering for organizations and Filipino migrants. Marvic, as everyone knows, founded one of the first environmental legal resources center, and later on was asked to be General Counsel of U.P., then Vice President for Legal of U.P.
So, from then, i never used that phrase. Baka biglang may umalingawngaw sa kaliwa at kanang tenga ko (a boom might suddenly echo from my left and right ear): “Ba’t mo ginagamit yan!” (“Why are you using that phrase!”)
Although in reality all lawyers have been trained to be legal positivists: Find a law or rule, if there’s none, dig up one; if you can’t find one, go back to ancient times, go back to the Romans for chrissake just find a law or precedent, short of going back to pre-history.
And that’s the pre-history of that.
