22 years of communicating

Easter Monday is another special day for me. This day marks the start of “A Law Each Day as a regular column in the Philippine Star twenty two years ago in 1987.

Actually even before the Philippine Star was born, I was already contributing to the “mosquito press” during the waning years of the ruthless Martial Law regime. My legal training and education at the Ateneo de Manila University College of Law where I heavily imbibed the basic principles of law and justice and the civil liberties of democracy somehow impelled me to abandon the ranks of the fence sitters and become more involved in the political and social events then unfolding in our country especially the brutal, shocking and impudent assassination of Ninoy Aquino publicly carried out in broad daylight at a public place in the presence of so many people. That event and the shameless attempt to douse a thorough in-depth investigation leading to the mastermind of the crime pushed me not only to join the street rallies but also to cast out all fears of openly expressing through the Press my resentment and indignation against that despicable crime and the oppressive and ruthless regime responsible for it.

Hence my series of articles denouncing the military and its gargantuan budget first appeared in the newspaper “Malaya”. Subsequently some of my articles on the Ninoy Aquino assassination also saw print in the weekly “Mr.&Ms.” Magazine ran by people who later put up the Philippine Star, particularly Mrs. Betty Go-Belmonte, Max Soliven, Louie Beltran, Art Borjal and Tony Roces among others.

But even as the people successfully ousted the Marcos dictatorship through the historic non-violent revolution of 1986, uneasiness still lingers because Filipinos have short memories and may easily forget one of the most important lessons learned during that sad chapter in our country’s history — that Marcos was able to impose his one man rule mainly because people was kept ignorant or was not fully and properly informed and educated on the workings of a democratic government and the various laws that make it work as well as on their inalienable rights and serious responsibilities in a democratic society. And so I toyed with the idea of writing a regular column in a newspaper about law and jurisprudence in our country and about the acts and conducts of public and private individuals with legal implications. My idea was to keep the people abreast on the science of giving wise interpretations to laws and justly applying them to all cases as they may arise by writing about it in the simplest way and in a language easily understood by the masses. After all, I thought that the surest and most effective way to reach the primary goal of this science known as “jurisprudence”, which is to attain and uphold justice in this land, was for all citizens, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, to learn and understand it. Besides I also believed that if people are well informed about the conformity or non-conformity of the government acts and conducts to the rules and methods laid down by the sovereign powers, good governance is ensured.

Fortunately, I met Mrs. Betty Go-Belmonte the founding Chairperson of the Philippine STAR who readily appreciated and empathized with my idea. Mrs. Belmonte only requested me to write my articles in the most charitable way which was really in keeping with her deep spirituality founded on her strong belief in God’s Word as contained in the Holy Bible. To be sure, her request propitiously coincided with St Paul’s letter to the Romans (13:8-10) which says that God’s commandments “are all summed up in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Love never wrongs the neighbor hence love is the fulfillment of the law”.

And so “A Law Each Day (keeps trouble away)” first came out on Easter Monday of 1987 in the Op-Ed pages of the Philippine STAR, the newspaper established on the firm commitment of always ensuring that “Truth Shall Prevail”.

Since then this column has come out of the Philippine Star issue initially on a weekly, then bi-weekly basis and eventually on a daily basis. Later on I thought that the Sunday issue should deal with Divine law rather than human laws because Sunday should be exclusively devoted to God. Hence I changed the column’s title for Sunday into “God’s Word Today” and requested some priests to write it. Initial contributors include priests from our Parish of the Immaculate Conception like Fr. Rudy Horst, SVD, and also Jesuit priests Fr. Ruben Tanseco, S.J. and Fr. Jesus Fernandez, S.J. Due to pressure of work, Fr. Rudy Horst later on begged off leaving Fr. Tanseco and Fr. Fernandez as regular columnists for Sundays. Eventually Fr. Fernandez also had to “retire”, hence his slot was filled by several Jesuits among whom are Fr. Manuel V. Francisco, S.J., Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, S.J., Fr. JonJee Sumpaico, S.J., Fr. Aris Dy, S.J. and others.

Eventually, the cases written in “A Law Each Day” were also aired on TV starting 1989 (IBC 13, RPN 9 and ABS-CBN 2) in the form of legal drama anthologies under the now famous title of “Ipaglaban Mo” that has since become a household by-word. Two movies also later on evolved from these legal dramas with the same title. Aside from the legal drama anthology, legal vignettes were also devised adopting and translating into Tagalog the column’s various cases and aired on TV first as a public service portion in the program “Hoy Gising” under the title of “Ikaw at ang Batas” and then later on also published in The Pilipino Star Nagayon. “Ipaglaban Mo” has already bowed out of the TV screen since 2000 although “Ikaw at ang Batas” still airs in NBN 4 and continues to run in the Pilipino Star Ngayon.

Today 22 years later, with the new generation of Belmontes ably running the Philippine Star in the person of Miguel as President and Isaac as Editor in Chief and after more than 6,500 articles written, “A Law Each Day” remains committed to keep the masses informed about their rights and responsibilities under the law and to put across legal commentaries on day to day events especially now when lack of transparency on the part of the government has become rampant again, when poverty and oppression still prevails and when the rule of law is jeopardized anew.