Jesus M Elbinias
ALL the politicians of this country, not just Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Abano III and Zamboanga del Sur Rep. Isodoro Real, should express alarm over the results of a Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey showing that so many Filipino families went hungry in the last three months of 2005. A total of 2.8 million people or some 700,000 families went through "severe hunger" while 2.1 million did not have food to eat at least once. SWS also reported that Filipinos considering themselves poor have risen to more than half of the population. If the alarm of these two congressmen of the high incidence of poverty is not alleviated, not only will the politicos today become irrelevant. Their alarm is virtually a warning that the hungry and angry might yet take matters into their own hands. This may not be far off, with aggressive leftist indoctrination among them today.
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There is an ambiguity or vagueness in heading a news column with a larger than regular-sized front, printed on a local newspaper yesterday. The report said that "the previous year, three judges, and three lawyers were murdered. Since President Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001, 11 lawyers have been killed, according to Counsels for the Defense of Liberties." Another sentence read: "Besides Gingoyon, seven lawyers were killed in 2005. The previous year, three judges and three lawyers were murdered." Such ambiguity and vagueness would have been avoided and so would the readers’ confusion, if only the number of lawyers killed were counted within the years, it would have been enough saying "Since 2001, 11 lawyers were killed."
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The attacks against justices, judges, lawyers, and other legal professionals undermine the practice of law and the ability of lawyers to fulfill their sworn of professional obligation to serve their clients to the fullest of their capacity to adhere to their professional responsibility. If they face threats of harm and danger to their life and those of their families, they may not be able to maintain their responsibility but be paralyzed into standing passive roles instead of vigorously serving the welfare of the clients. Those in the legal profession are mandated by the Canons of the Code of Professional Responsibility. For lawyers, they must be efficient and compatible with independence, integrity, and effectiveness of the profession, with competence and diligence. Lawyers should follow their code. Or how will they be respected?
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On the part of justices and judges, they are expected to promulgate their decisions without fear or favor based on the application of appropriate law or on the law and their evaluation of the evidence presented during the trial in court. Their decisions are not to be influenced by one party and against the opponent or any other party on consideration of his capacity of wealth or government position. To be true about it, some justices and judges are in cahoots with lawyers and parties to be influenced by those influence-brokers although the winning decision promulgated is not supported by law and not proved by evidence. In which case, the lawyers and judges involved in that transaction are both corrupt wholly against their code of ethics. To minimize the attacks against lawyers and judges, the new judicial reformation program should include professional motivation as part of the training for judges and lawyers.
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