Inspiring U-Belt students to do crazy things

When University of the East law students asked me to coach the debate team, I explained that I am a writer, not a public speaker. At best, I judge “Square Off: The Firm Debates” on ANC and ask questions for about a minute per episode.

I added that I am not available outside my class times. They responded that they already submitted my name to the dean and could go to my house on Sunday morning. I had been expertly hustled.

On the appointed Sunday, I advised them to stop arguing like high school debaters and drop emotional appeals and hyperbole. More critically, I outlined their lack of practice in applying standard frameworks to emerging issues or, worse, not knowing the latest frameworks.

I judged the last “Square Off” semifinals, which asked whether the Supreme Court may review the Senate Electoral Tribunal decision upholding Sen. Grace Poe’s citizenship given the Constitution states the SET is “sole judge” of a senator’s qualifications.

This issue may either be deemed legal, meaning governed by objective standards, or political, meaning inherently subjective policy. The line is not always clear, and there is inherent tension between judges and legislators on where to draw it.

One’s argument would be superficial without this philosophical context. American classes thus emphasize it. Philippine classes abbreviate it for the bar exam.

Last year, the University of the Philippines team that won “Square Off” also asked me to coach them. It took me a while to grasp that they were studying European free speech law to compete in the Price tournament. They seemed completely out of their minds but they won, schooling Europeans in European law at no less than Oxford University.

I braved traffic to drive to the house of Prof. Harry Roque, who had also been expertly hustled. I brought a UE debater who watched silently, immediately realizing the UP practice session made “Square Off” look like kindergarten.

The tournament revolved around hate speech. The Philippines follows US doctrine, where free speech is near sacred. European doctrine emphasizes condemnation of racial and religious discrimination and allows antihate speech laws. The UP students had become the Philippines’ leading experts on the latter through self study.

What makes the record-breaking UP team different?

Certainly not effort.

Nor can it be raw intelligence. In a country of 100 million, UP’s students cannot be that much smarter than the next best 10 schools’. Indeed, USC draws from a smaller applicant pool yet has succeeded in “Square Off.”

Nor can it be resources. A Philippine student can now download the same materials as an Oxford student.

It boils down to two factors. First, I think University Belt schools are more restricted by the prescribed bar exam curriculum, unlike headstrong UP.

My greatest frustration teaching in UE was how some students seemed conditioned to want nothing more than bullet points to memorize for the bar. Some read textbooks as a shortcut and failed my exam because these were published before my assigned cases. Some seemed uninterested in debates raging in headlines and how my column telegraphed exam questions.

No amount of hard work can compensate for taking muskets to today’s war, or outdated legal mindsets to “Square Off.”

Second, there seems to be an unwritten U-Belt memo that students should only aspire so much. No other mindset could sap all joy from learning and resign students to studying just enough for the bar.

In the most outlandish stunt in my class, one freshman proudly announced that the class had assigned one student to read one assigned case per session. Most law students would expect to be Force-choked on the spot, but he seemed genuinely confused when I asked how they expected to learn without reading all the cases.

I always wondered why my best students never asked about graduate studies, foreign internships or even publishing a law journal article or newspaper column. It seemed they were not aware of these, beyond the bar. Indeed, no one has wondered why almost all Philippine Harvard Law graduates have been UP or Ateneo alumni when, again, we are a country of 100 million with many law schools.

These two factors trap passionate, hardworking students in a cruel mindset that all will be well if they study the prescribed, outdated material for the bar. They are left to wonder why they have difficulty debating current events on TV, even after working so hard.

Bar obsession makes it easy to overlook how law is so human a discipline. Young idealists teaching law in the U-Belt hope to transcend memorizing endless rules. They hope to empower and inspire.

I hope I showed my students enough to shake off the cruel mindset and go to Europe to debate European law or attempt whatever glorious lunacy they fancy.

I hope I showed them enough to dream.

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When I enter the Inquirer’s round, trading floor-like newsroom, Opinion editor Chato Garcellano warns me not to disturb those doing real work.

I immediately realized that Letty Jimenez Magsanoc defined it. When I brought a riesling I liked, multiple staffers warned that LJM only likes red wine.

I last spoke to LJM at length at last year’s anniversary. She emerged from her office at midnight after putting the Inquirer to bed and took her spot at the newsroom’s center.

We talked about the evolution of newspapers’ roles and how front-page choices matter less when younger readers receive stories through social media. Do Facebook algorithms, not LJM, decide what articles readers want to see?

LJM smiled sagely and pronounced that no computer will ever equal judgment honed by over 30 years of experience.

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