Not all good law schools produce good lawyers

One would normally think that good law schools produce good lawyers — good in terms of having a keener sense of what is, not only legally but morally, right or wrong. But that guarantee has proved to be more imagined than real.

A Bar topnotcher after graduating from the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University School of Law, Justice Menardo Guevarra was expected to be a beacon of hope in the midst of all the mess that President Duterte has done to this country. But what a disappointment he has been. Public service to him has meant serving only at the “pleasure of the President,” i.e., to do only as Mr. Duterte desires or commands and to refrain from doing what pisses him off!

In 2020, criminal cases for “rape, child abuse, and ill-treatment” against Apollo Quiboloy, the self-appointed “son of God” and President Duterte’s “spiritual adviser,” were dismissed by the Davao City prosecutor. No one was surprised. Elevated to the Department of Justice for review, those cases have yet to be resolved to date by Guevarra’s minions. Need anyone ask where those cases are really going?

The Senate blue ribbon committee has closed its investigations into the Pharmally scandal, with a report and recommendations for criminal prosecution against President Duterte’s Cabinet officials and other high public officials appointed by him, including his friends acting in cahoots with them. What are the chances of such prosecution being commenced by Guevarra, knowing full well that Mr. Duterte has been their “defense lawyer”? Nil.

Aside from Guevarra, Ateneo has also produced exceptional lawyers like the late chief justice Renato Corona, associate justices Arturo Brion, Mariano del Castillo, and Estella Bernabe of the Supreme Court. Corona achieved the distinction of being the first and only justice of the highest court of the land to be impeached and actually dismissed for amassing ill-gotten wealth. Brion, Del Castillo, and Bernabe virtually “sold their souls to the devil” by joining the cabal that gave the most evil president ever to rule this country the great “honor” of a “hero’s burial.”

Quo vadis, Ateneo?

ROSE ANNE BARTOLOME
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