Round three... (The Final Saga) Fight!

OBLIVION. A day in Law school is like years of oblivion.

Sky, Heaven, and Earth. The writer with his family in one of their weekend family treats. Breakfast by the South China Sea, 2011.

 

It’s been two years now since I took up law school. Likewise, it’s been two years that I have mingled with fellows who were pursuing the legal profession- all of us came from various walks of life. It’s a fusion of profession, attitude, wit, personality and the like.

Being one of them and belonging to the pioneer class was another chapter of life which has become an attribution to my existence as a person. Two years after, I have never imagined that I would be influenced, inspired, and challenged by various thinkers. They were all tough as adobe, brute as Chernobyl, and as alarming as Fukushima.

                                                                                                 

Being the keen observer as I am, I have kept all those remarkable moments- school activities in general, the lectures, recitations, exams, and all of those faces and actions that no one could ever imagine I can take notice of. A trace of those memories of two long years in the “school of exact science” was freshly preserved in my chambers. In fact, some had been published on my previous notes (Round one...Fight! and Round two...Fight!). All of them, worthy to be kept and cherished forever.

While it is easy to say that we were called in these career with “personal conviction” (my choice of word when one of my Professors asked the reason why I took up law), for some, they had yielded to other reasons I cannot exactly recollect. However, there was one noteworthy to quote during the first year when a late enrolee, who happened to be in the field of medicine, was among us. When asked what her purpose was, she blatantly said, “I want to be a doctor- lawyer”. For me, the answer made no sense. It was just like, “hey, I want an Oreo, so I have to get one”. I also noted another as saying “my annulment case is on the process and I felt the urge of getting to know more about the law”. Again, the answer was suffocating in the nerves.

In my first year, I get to know my classmates in a very short length of time. Though I was aloof like anyone does, some have become brave enough and approached this not so tall, dark, and awesome man (according to my friend Ernest) that I am. In return, I always managed to oblige with a big smile while introducing my nick to whoever was brave enough to draw near on me. The feeling was great. It was all that thinking of “these boys and girls will be my opponents in four to five years” at least, in court, which made me feel thrilled. In three months or barely half the first semester, all the names have been memorized by heart, identified who’s single or married, the places where they came from, and their pre- law degrees. All of us have our own weapons to fire shot on each other, in due time, I thought.

Then there was fervent eagerness to meet my professors. Questions like, “what was their pre-law degree?” or “what law school did they attend?” were the first issues that came across my mind. I was expecting though that they were taught locally or perhaps those that were produced by the “Maroon University”. However, it did not matter at all if they were. Most importantly, I thought, they should at least be real lawyers, otherwise everything would be put into waste. Finally, doubts were flushed when I learned that my professors were actually “big shots” and them as products of well known law schools in the country. Then on, big dreams came underway.

Civil law was tough, nonetheless the most interesting bar subject, I suppose. Simply because it was easy to understand human relations and all of those family matters especially to a married individual like me. On one hand, came also the day of my first encounter of the Revised Penal Code and those rules and requisites that governs and qualifies a crime. The subject matter was a bit disgusting at first. Of course, you get to know the stages of a commission of a crime up to all of those things one cannot imagine is punishable under the law.

What came next were sleepless nights with the devilish red hard bound books and swelling arms due to goblin of cases to digest and write. If I remember it right, Criminal Law and Legal and Judicial Ethics were the most devastating subject to have to most numbers of cases to read and digest. At the very least, my handwriting had a bit of improvement and I have also developed a fondness to ponente Justices in the like of Makasiar, Bengzon, and Laurel in their dissents or concurring opinions to a certain case.

A year came to pass and I have developed admiration to some classmates whom I shared my tales in the college, my life as a family man, and the not so prodigy that I am, though some had these praises I succumbed to in order to show respect in them. At times, we could get some booze in our hands and enjoy an hour or two. All of those boozing hours, however, exceptionally took place with respect, humiliation, and professionalism with all those petty and consequential discussions under the sun me and my delectable classmates had. With mortification and immense respect to my contemporaries in school, their diverse personalities have become my inner school of learning. For my part, there can be no Law subject or any tougher lesson to learn than knowing a man’s personality.

Speaking of classmates, each had different stories to narrate each time we had this “gobble- nibble” merging anytime soon when major exams were commenced or soon as we felt like we needed some malt or alcohol in our veins and exhausted nerves. I was glad that most of them were conversationalist, at their own rights, however few had fit in to the “intellectual intercourse” I am used to.

Simply put, each of my mates was defined by their way of talking and how they react on matters which affect our persona as an individual. Each was good speakers and reactors though, but few were called to be integrated with the so- called “circle of wellness” due to failure in manner and restraint. Not being so judgmental, but I was lucky to find out that many of them had become the offspring that they are in their twenty’s, thirty’s, and even forty’s anytime soon they were caught in the middle of a situation, I may say, had been hard for them to handle.

 In scheduling a simple orientation for the school alone, or setting up a common time for a meeting, complications had always rose up to the extent of almost blowing a whistle which a dumb being could not even hear it, not mentioning the classic issue of rescheduling of exams (with or without classmates knowledge) and of disrespecting the greater number of the majority. Imagine, one can move a scheduled and agreed date of exam simply because of personal reason which makes no sense. None sense, illogical, and gross mind-set at its best which is too good to be cursed. And if I could only put matters in my fists, I would sickly launch my knocking powers just as Manny did in many of his million dollars worth fights.

Ah, it was not the type of environment that I was exposed to, but if this is the way I should learn the trade, I said, I should cope up with it, at least. Nonetheless, I choose to be one of them, be a part of the club until such time maybe when my nose bleeds in understanding these cynical and warring heads I thought at first would give me the damn ammunition I’d fire first before a numskull prosecutor would do. To recapitulate, I bought my first fountain pen hoping that it would fit into the glowing perquisite. The marks, however was catastrophic as those that were written by Mark Twain. Bloody and vague, ambiguous and sickly sweet!

In truth, throughout my thirty one years of existence, I have never come across to someone whose wit was like Tarzan who does this alarming “ah-ah-ah-whoooooaaaaah!” first before making a move to capsize his opponent. In school there were numbers of Tarzans who were bubbly enough that they don’t mind respecting the silence of others or the opinion of the “marginal members of the class”. They could have used of being as such perhaps, however, they too, could have missed the point that them, being in a different environment, at least in school, should make necessary adjustments from the point of their previous undertakings. If they only knew, sans their melodramatic attitude, even an abnormal person as Ivan would take notice of them with his trademark whistle of lust and envy.

While it’s true that having the capability to talk is a plus in pursuing the legal profession, it is also sad but true that the knack has become the crowning glory for the egocentric and mischievous ones. Let’s say, not because one is religiously- scholarly taught, or crowned beauty queen or self- proclaimed genius, or maybe one feels like he or she has the ascendancy to talk would entitle the same to dominate everyone. Otherwise, we must be comparable to the race of putting one’s kingdom in the medieval times anytime we want. That hurts. But see, in Civil Law, I was taught during one the pep talks inside the class to “never speculate, it would only hurt you.” Okay, I need to shift from doldrums now before I would catch my keyboard typing a Christian name (smiley).

Going third year this coming semester, I am but all ready to go through again in the oblivion of my chosen career and on with the battles ahead. I may not be earning as well what many of my mates call “toppings” but I am sure I would have my own share of bite at the end of the day. On my own conclusion and in my personal judgment, nothing constantly comes to pass wholly by mistake or by an overnight twist of chance. I say this, because I have been a prey of morbid tongues and unforgiving verdict by others- in and outside school. However it may be, all of which did not make any divergence. Law school is a training ground for a folk who wants to earn honourable and intellectual ascendancy- both are hard earned, not by a blunder or twirl of possibility.

There were so many things I wish I could narrate during my two- year journey into the law profession. However, I would rather choose to have those kept for my solace so that when the right time comes, I would have more great stories to tell and memories to remember. So that when those memories are recollected, I should be a prouder man sitting on a Narra chair and Molave table with my honourable name impressed on a marble. Yes, I have become a fantasist since the day I enrolled in the law school and up to now I never cease to being as such. Those dreams are fuel to my combustion to keep me going so that even in times of wrath and unforgiving moments, I am hardly pushed by my conviction of obtaining that coveted roll number.

Soon after, I was immunized by a thousand and one pains and challenges brought in my life in the School of Law, however, never did I succumb, never was I put on my knees, and never was I pinned down. You bet, I won by TKO.