Individuals and the law

A lawyer with a stubborn streak incensed at a government agency’s refusal to reveal information. Siblings, both of them Jehovah’s Witnesses, barred from a public school for refusing to do the “flag salute.” An American wheeler-dealer “who bought a country.” A battered wife. A “martyr” from Tondo who, despite his humble beginnings, took on the rich and powerful. A motel magnate who would later turn militant “born-again.” And 12 justices of the Supreme Court who changed the fate of a nation.

These are just some of the personalities who figure in the book “Our Rights, Our Victories: Landmark Cases in the Supreme Court” by Marites Dañguilan Vitug and Criselda Yabes. In this book, Vitug and Yabes explain and examine landmark cases brought before the Supreme Court – cases that somehow ended up shaping the exercise and enjoyment of our rights and freedoms today.

Some names in these cases will sound familiar: Harry Stonehill (well, maybe only to a segment of the population), Jose Diokno, Mayor Fred Lim, lawyers Valentin Legaspi, Antonio Oposa and Estelito Mendoza (among others), Leo Echegaray.

But few would remember, I bet, Marivic Genosa, Roel and Emily Ebralinag (actually, Embralinag), Soledad Escritor, Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo, Rodolfo Vasquez and one “Josue Javellana” whose identity remains a mystery to this day but whose suit is basic reading to any Filipino law student.

That is one lesson powerfully taught by “Our Rights, Our Victories.” Ordinary, seemingly nondescript individuals could, through an accident of history or sheer doggedness, end up changing the lives of Filipinos, winning new freedoms or expanding on old ones, redefining civil and political rights in the light of new realities.

In many ways, the book is also about the evolution of the Supreme Court, which has been called the “last bastion” of the rule of law, but which, depending on its composition and the individual bent of its members, can shift its interpretation of the law, and expand or narrow the coverage of the mantle of protection afforded to citizens.

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One phrase quoted in the book is from the ponente (decision) of then Justice Dante Tinga in “White Light Corp. v. City of Manila.” Writing of a case involving an ordinance barring “short time” in the city’s motels, he notes that “the Bill of Rights does not shelter gravitas alone.”

By this he meant that while the case is presumably only about the right of couples to stay in motels for less than 12 hours – and that of motel operators to let them –the case ended up protecting ordinary folk (amorous though they may be) and businesses from the “whimsical intrusion” of government.

And yet that is what many of the cases in the book ended up doing: protecting individuals from the whimsical, deliberate, malicious, and even vicious intrusion of the State.

It’s said that the law exists not just to protect the rights of the majority, but more importantly, to protect the rights of a minority, even if that minority consists of but one person.

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Twice before, the right of children belonging to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religion which bars the worship of any “graven image,” to refuse to “salute” the Philippine flag had been struck down in favor of State interests. But when Leonardo Embralinag, father of Roel and Emily, brought suit in their behalf, he might have been unaware that in the view of the Supreme Court, the time had come to “re-examine” this doctrine. Seen in the light of the basic right to freedom of religion, Justice Santiago Kapunan, in a decision turning down an appeal, declared that: “…no less fundamental than the right to take part is the right to stand apart.”

Interviewed for the book, Roel Embralinag, now a farmer, expressed incredulity that he figured in a case considered a milestone in Philippine jurisprudence. It was the first time, he said, that anybody interviewed him and his family about it.

Of particular interest to me was the chapter on “People of the Philippines v. Marivic Genosa.” The case is now remembered for establishing the “battered woman syndrome” as a valid form of self-defense, expanding the understanding of the courts of the psychological ramifications of domestic violence.

Marivic’s case came to our attention during a meeting of the board of Abanse! Pinay after a story on the death sentence handed down to her came out in the papers. Wasn’t there anything we could do for this woman (who was eight months pregnant at the time of the crime) who had endured years of battering and believed her husband was about to kill her and was thus driven to shoot him while he lay in a drunken stupor?

Then Abanse! Pinay president lawyer Katrina Legarda decided to take on Marivic’s case and sought her acquittal based on the “battered woman’s syndrome,” used to describe a state of mind of a woman who has lived in fear for such a long time, she feels the only recourse is to kill the abuser. After serving six years in jail, Marivic was freed, and her legacy lives on in the Anti-Violence against Women and their Children Act.

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There are many other interesting cases discussed in “Our Rights, Our Victories.” Some are filled with irony, as the postscripts demonstrate (the motel chain owner ended up burning a motel bed as an “altar to the demons”), while others are poignant and awe-inspiring.

A lawyer-friend once explained that the primary function of the legal profession is to “interpret the language of laws to lay people.” Some lawyers may feel that keeping the language arcane and inscrutable is their ticket to a lifelong career. But in setting out to re-visit landmark cases and writing about them in simple, journalistic but no less compelling terms, Vitug and Yabes not just interpret the law, but also celebrate and underline its true value.