I was cleared of cheating - Agra

MANILA, Philippines - Acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra denied yesterday a report of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) that he admitted to cheating in an examination when he was studying at the Ateneo de Manila Law School.

In his reply to the report, Agra admitted he flunked that Wills and Succession class under lawyer Avelino Sebastian in 1988, which delayed his graduation by one year, but he never cheated in any exam.

“What I actually admitted to was that I had been charged, albeit maliciously, with cheating by my professor attorney Avelino Sebastian. The disciplinary committee created to investigate the charge exonerated me together with my other classmates,” he explained.

Agra revealed that he was not able to join the graduation in 1989 because he did not pass that subject.

“I repeated the course and completed my requirements in October 1989,” he explained.

But Agra stressed that the failing grade did not cause his failure as person or lawyer. “Failing in one subject does not define me as a person. No one should be defined and judged this way.”

He believes that the Ateneo Law School apparently gave no weight to the red mark in his transcript of records because he has been a professor/lecturer in the college since 1993.

“To this very day, I continue to teach. I started with one subject. There were semesters where I handle two or three subjects. For those who want to continue learning from me, I can always give lectures and seminars. I will continue to pursue my teaching vocation and passion for imparting what I know in the Ateneo or elsewhere,” he stressed.

Agra is facing massive condemnation for his decision last April 16 absolving two prominent members of the Ampatuan clan in the Maguindanao massacre case.

He issued this statement in response to the PCIJ report that he and six classmates at the Ateneo Law School were supposedly found cheating by professor Sebastian, who discovered that his students had exactly the same wrong answers in an examination, down to the decimal points. To their teacher, that was hint enough that the students had cheated. The report said Agra finally admitted to cheating.

“It was a scandal at the time,” said an Ateneo staffer privy to the incident but who declined to be named in the PCIJ report. “There were about 100 students who took the exam. Agra and his classmates were accused of cheating by their professor who had them investigated.”

The case reached the dean’s office and went all the way up to the office of the university president.

Two other Ateneo personnel interviewed separately by PCIJ corroborated the staffer’s story. They also said it was the final exam in the Law of Wills and Succession subject under then professor Sebastian.

Sebastian, who has retired from teaching at the Ateneo, in a recent telephone interview with the PCIJ neither confirmed nor denied that Agra was among those he had found cheating in class.

But Agra would redeem himself from his rather unpleasant academic past, establishing himself early in his career as a defender of the defenseless.

In the late 1980s, the then young lawyer was earning praise from activists for, among other things, helping found and later heading the non-government organization Saligan ng Alternatibong Lingap Panlegal

(Saligan), an Ateneo-based alternative lawyers’ group catering to the needs of the poor and marginalized sectors of society.

During the Estrada administration, Agra got involved in local governance work and one of his clients was then San Juan City Mayor now Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, who was also former national president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines.

Agra became the election lawyer of the K-4 coalition made up of the then ruling party Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, Liberal Party, Nationalist People’s Coalition, and the Nacionalista Party in the 2004 elections.

The coalition’s standard-bearer was President Arroyo.