Reason & Concern

by Ronquillo C. Tolentino

Looking Back At Bar Matter No. 2012

It was not until I read in the newspaper on June 24, 2010 issue that lawyers groups in Cebu are opposed to Bar Matter No. 2012 or Mandatory Legal Aid Service.

Bar Matter No. 2012 shall be implemented by the Supreme Court this year.

In retrospect, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, (IBP) conducted a public forum on August 28, 2009 at the JBL Reyes Hall at the IBP Building at Ortigas Center, Pasig City. IBP chapter presidents, officers and members from nine (9) regions, and officers and members of the Philippine Bar Association attended.

Lawyers in attendance in the said forum expressed concern that the legal aid service should be voluntary manifesting that the Rule on Mandatory Legal Aid Service shall farther encourage litigation and clog court dockets.

The view of Director E. (Leo) D. Battad of the Office of Legal Aid, College of Law, UP needs serious thought when he emphasized that legal aid should only be voluntary because free legal aid cannot be legislated. Battad further said that to make legal aid mandatory would create anti-poor sentiments if not even ambulance chasing.

Dean Amado Valdez of the College of Law, University of the East posits that if legal aid is mandatory, it must be qualitative and not quantitative in nature. Valdez clarifies that when he speaks of qualitative, he speaks of what kind of values we want to reform or to introduce to society. Legal aid must be towards changing attitude of people. Valdez added that mandatory legal aid services must be limited to lawyers who just graduated and passed the bar and made mandatory within the same time frame of five years.

The ASEAN Law Association of the Philippines advocates for the abolition of the Rule on Mandatory Legal Aid as it fails to provide an inexpensive procedure and therefore inconsistent with the requirements set forth in Sec. 5, Par. 5, Article Vlll of the Constitution and is void for violation of the equal protection clause under Sec. 1 of Article III of the Constitution by creating classifications, without substantial distinction, within the legal profession.

The Philippine Bar Association’s position considers the Rule to spawn more litigation which would inevitably decelerate the resolution of cases. "It will force each practicing lawyer to find indigent or pauper litigants to pursue actions or give premium on the practice of soliciting clients and cases. It also compels lawyers to practice civil or criminal cases even if their specialization are in tax or corporate cases and, therefore, will become easy prey for litigation practitioners much to the prejudice of the indigent clients", the Philippine Bar Association added.

Atty. Marven B. Daquilanea, president of the IBP Iloilo chapter has this to say: "Our idea is that we should remove the monetary penalty as a substitute for non-compliance. In order to dispel the impression that this is just a mercenary mechanism to augment the IBP legal aid program, we believe that if we incur the penalty, we still have to perform the unperformed service so that we will encourage everybody to comply."

Lawyers are consulted by the national IBP on their views and opinions through written or text messages. When the Rule on Mandatory Legal Aid Service was being considered and upon knowing of lawyers being exempted for the Rule such as, but not limited to government employees and incumbent elective officials, lawyers who are not allowed to appear in court, supervising lawyers of students enrolled in law practice, lawyers of non-governmental organizations and peoples’ organization like to Free Legal Assistance Group who by the nature of their work already render free legal aid to indigent and pauper litigants or those who are employed in private sector but do not appear for in behalf of parties in court of law and quasi-judicial agencies.

I submitted my own proposal for exemption since Rule 7 of the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education (MCLE) or Bar Matter No. 850 has eleven (11) exemptions. 　　Although, as past Aklan IBP president, my proposal was not given serious thought by IBP National, I proposed that lawyers who have been at law practice for 30 consecutive years or who have reached 65 years old should be exempted.

To use the words of Atty. Tranquil Gervacio S. Salvador III, president of IBP Quezon City chapter, a private practitioner is already neck-deep with work. "Unlike government lawyers who work on 8-5 basis, the working hours of private practitioners are up to unholy hours. Unlike the government lawyers who work within the permanent office, the work of a private lawyer goes beyond every known geographical barrier." May I hasten to add that lawyers who are in practice for 30 years of active private law practice deserves a degree of relaxation, avoidance of other burdensome work.

It is not debatable that physical ailments oftentimes accompany old age more so when there are additional and physical burdens or obligations. The year for retirement of majority of government employees is 65 years old except policemen, military officers and men, and the Supreme Court justices and judges. My two cents worth of suggestion did not even merit scant attention.

The August 28, 2009 IBP public forum comments and recommen-dations, together with the inputs of the resource speakers were made the basis in formulating the draft implementing regulations which the IBP submitted to the Supreme Court for consideration and approval. I still retain the question of the IBP Cotabato chapter, thus: "Is it constitutional to compel lawyers to render free legal aid service under pain of deprivation of their license to practice?" /MP