Nag-iisang Isagani A. Cruz

Reading Supreme Court decisions is dreary. The decisions are so long that after reading them, all you want to do is sleep. But rarely does one experience it if one were to read a decision written by former Associate Justice Isagani A. Cruz. They say Justice Cruz is one of those rare breed of lawyers who could both write and reason well. Here's a random sample and you be judge:

"Zeal in the pursuit of criminals cannot ennoble the use of arbitrary methods that the Constitution itself abhors." (Bagalihog vs. Fernandez, G.R. No. 96356 June 27, 1991)

"Laws must come out in the open in the clear light of the sun instead of skulking in the shadows with their dark, deep secrets...The furtive law is like a scabbarded saber that cannot feint, parry or cut unless the naked blade is drawn." (Tañada vs. Tuvera, G.R. No. L-63915 December 29, 1986).

"The possible exception is the lawyer whose income is derived from teaching ballroom dancing or escorting wrinkled ladies with pubescent pretensions." (Dissenting, Cayetano vs. Monsod, G.R. No. 100113 September 3, 1991)

"[S]ocial justice –– or any justice for that matter –– is for the deserving, whether he be a millionaire in his mansion or a pauper in his hovel. It is true that, in case of reasonable doubt, we are called upon to tilt the balance in favor of the poor, to whom the Constitution fittingly extends its sympathy and compassion. But never is it justified to prefer the poor simply because they are poor, or to reject the rich simply because they are rich, for justice must always be served, for poor and rich alike, according to the mandate of the law." (Gelos vs. CA, G.R. No. 86186 May 8, 1992)

"Unless we are vigilant of our rights, we may find ourselves back to the dark era of the truncheon and the barbed wire, with the Court itself a captive of its own complaisance and sitting at the death-bed of liberty." (Dissenting, Valmonte vs. De Villa,G.R. No. 83988 September 29, 1989)

Update: See Justice Cruz's concurring opinion in Adiong vs. COMELEC, G.R. No. 103956 March 31, 1992 and dissenting in National Press Club vs. COMELEC, G.R. No. 102653 March 5, 1992.

Victims of Love

To be a lawyer in this country is never easy. It takes eight years of formal study (4 years of Pre-Law & 4 years of Law proper), a year of preparing for the Bar Exam, and an eternity of reading, reading, and reading. It also takes a lot of sacrifices, many are supreme but some are trivial. Thus, being disbarred is perhaps the most painful thing that can ever happen to a lawyer.

That is why, in Buado vs. Layag, the Supreme Court said, "Disbarment is the most severe form of disciplinary sanction.  The power to disbar must always be exercised with great caution, for only the most imperative reasons, and in clear cases of misconduct affecting the standing and moral character of the lawyer as an officer of the court and a member of the bar."

Yet in the case of former PBA Commissioner Atty. Noli Eala, that's the price he had to pay for having the right love at the wrong time.

Better Handwriting, Better Chances at the Bar Exam

No one can tell for sure because no one stands behind the examiner, looks over his shoulder, and see how he checks the exams. But rumor has it---and in fact it's an oft-repeated warning by law professors---that if an examiner doesn't find your handwriting palpable to read, they'll toss off your exam booklet and give you a failing grade.

"Remember class," law professors would say, "most of the Bar examiners are already old." By old they probably meant grandfather old. They don't have the luxury of time to decipher what you wrote in the booklet. Neither do these examiners possess the Rosetta Stone which could help them understand Hieroglyphics. This belief is not baseless at all. Every year there are at least 5,000 Bar takers. Imagine if one examiner would spend half an hour reading one exam booklet, he won't meet the deadline.

Thus, law professors constantly remind first year law students to improve their handwriting. If not, forget about being a lawyer. Trivial as it may be, one's handwriting could pose a great obstacle to one's ambition.

The story may be apocryphal, but they say that there are those who took the bar twice or thrice before they passed. The defect has nothing to do with their knowledge of the law, but it has everything to do with their handwriting.

What then should the proper handwriting be? Or is there a prescribed or preferred handwriting? Should we write in cursive or in print?

There's I think no proper or prescribed form of handwriting when taking the Bar Exam. All handwriting, however, should have the same characteristic---legibility.

Now this is an example of legibility.

This is the actual Bar exam notebook of Atty. Ralph Sarmiento, Dean of University of St. La Salle, College of Law. He was Top 10 in the 1997 Philippine Bar Exam.

It may not be true that Bar examiners checked exam booklets solely on the taker's handwriting, but it doesn't hurt to improve one's handwriting.