PEOPLES LAWYERING: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES

INTRODUCTION
Lawyering is the work of a specially skilled, knowledgeable, or experienced
person who, serving by mutual agreement as another persons agent, invokes and
manipulates, or advises about, the dispute-resolving or transaction-effectuating
processes of the legal system for the purpose of solving a problem or causing a desired
change in, or preserving, the status quo for his or her principal.
HISTORY
Lawyers come and go But peoples lawyers do not fade away. We outlive this
legal system, that serves and perpetuates the status quo, by stretching the law to
protect the poor, or (by) achieving jurisprudence that champions the rights of the most
lowly so that the generations that come after them can continue to benefit from their
small victories.- Atty. Frederico M. Gapuz
People's lawyering goes a long way back in history. Apolinario Mabini, Jose Abad
Santos, Claro M. Recto, Jose W. Diokno, and Lorenzo M. Tanada were all lawyers and
patriots, yes. Above and beyond that, at crucial junctures in Philippine history, these
men proved to be passionately committed peoples lawyers. They serve as polestars
to the public-interest, human rights, or peoples lawyers of today.
As a lawyer and head of the Cabinet of the First Philippine Republic at the turn of
the 20th century, Mabinis most important act was to author the decree placing under
the government all the agricultural lands that had been grabbed by the Spanish friars,
ultimately for distribution to the Filipino tillers.
During the Japanese Occupation, Abad Santos (Chief Justice and justice
secretary under the Commonwealth) chose to be executed rather than serve the foreign
invaders.
In the post-World War II era, Senators Recto, Diokno, and Tanada were the
eminently uncompromising nationalists and anti-imperialists. They inspired the youths in
the 1960s-70s to deepen and broaden nationalism and democracy into a peoples
struggle for fundamental social change, carried on to this day by the progressive
peoples organizations and mass movement.

Under martial law, Diokno and Tanada (with Joker Arroyo) founded the Free
Legal Assistance Group. FLAG not only provided pro bono legal defense to political
detainees but produced legal and paralegal guidelines for asserting and defending
human rights. Diokno introduced the concept of developmental legal aid.
Lawyers all over the country, mostly young, either joined FLAG or organized likeminded formations, with such acronyms as MABINI, PLLP, BONIFACIO, COLUMN,
MAKATAO, BICOLANDIA, SOMOROY, and others like the already existing CLASP.
Several of them became martyrs to their calling and the peoples cause during
and even after martial law. Their stories cry out to be told.
In the post-martial law period, most of these lawyers groups receded into
inactivity. The Diokno family and some associates, however, have maintained FLAG
with a modest scope of activities.
However, the social inequities, abuses of power and human rights violations
persisted. The need for peoples lawyers remained compelling. Responding to such
need, in 1989 Atty. Romeo T. Capulong, a member of the 1971-72 Constitutional
Convention, gathered together young lawyers and established the Public Interest Law
Center. He remains chair of PILC, which has taken up case loads that have strained the
capacities of its small team of lawyers and staff.
Among others, the PILC was in the frontlines of the legal fight of the Hacienda
Luisita farm workers against the stock distribution option and for the distribution of the
land to them, as mandated by the CARP. They won the case recently in the Supreme
Court, although the ruling remains to be implemented.
In 2005, Frederico M. Gapuz, who had joined FLAG, COLUMN, PLLP and other
formations in Mindanao during martial law and suffered detention, led the founding of
the Union of Peoples Lawyers in Mindanao.
In 2007, Capulong and Gapuz were elected chairman and president,
respectively, by younger progressive lawyers who organized the National Union of
Peoples Lawyers, or NUPL. The NUPL is now the biggest grouping of dedicated
advocates and practitioners of peoples lawyering.

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PEOPLES LAWYERING: the Filipino Model

In the Philippine context, lawyering for the poor means lawyering for the
peasants, workers, urban poor, small fisher folk, indigenous peoples, and migrant
workers who comprise the overwhelming majority of our people.
These are the following cases and conflicts involving the poor:
1.The peasants in their struggle for genuine land reform and their legal battle
against land-grabbing and eviction in the name of so-called development by landgrabbers masquerading as property developers;
2.The workers in their struggle for decent wages and working conditions and in
their struggle to organize trade unions and associations that empower them and
represent their genuine interests;
3.The urban poor and informal settlers, oftentimes disparagingly called
squatters, in the defense of their right against summary eviction and for adequate
relocation site, housing and livelihood;
4.The migrant workers in the defense of their human rights under national and
international law in the host country and in their struggele against the apathy and
callousness of their own government to their problems a s migrant workers and to the
problems that beset their families in the homeland;
5.The small fisherfolk in their struggle to defend their fishing grounds against the
intrusions of local and foreign fishing magnates;
6.The indigenous people in the defense of their ancestral domain against landgrabbers and local and foreign mining companies;
7. Political victims of violations of human, civil and political rights such as extrajudicial killings, involuntary disappearances, tortur, illegal arrests and arbitrary detention
commietted by the state through its police, military and paramilitary forces;
8.The public in general on legal issues like environmental protection and
consumer rights.
As the words of Atty. Frederico M. Gapuz, Poverty is a question of wealth, they
say. But poverty is a question of law as well. Law legitimizes this unequal, exploitative,
inhumane social order. And it is our challenge, as public interest lawyers, to save what
remains of the law for the benefit of our peoples human rights, as we envision a social
order where equality is lived and not merely exists as a concept in legalese.

The Difference between Traditional Lawyering and Alternative Lawyering

The Philippine legal system serves the poor in two ways. The first is through
traditional legal aid or free legal assistance to indigent litigants, a practice introduced by
our Spanish and American colonizers along with their legal systems. The second is
through human rights lawyering or public interest law practice. Sometimes it is also
called alternative law practice, to distinguish it from traditional law practice.

Traditional legal aid or legal aid to indigent litigants is a feature of the legal
system introduced by colonial powers. The Philippine Constitution defines the rights of
poor litigants to adequate legal assistance in the following emphatic terms: Free access
to the courts and quasi-judicial bodies and adequate legal assistance shall not be
denied to any person by reason of poverty (Article III, Section 11). This is a strong
constitutional mandate both to the government and to the lawyers' organizations in the
country. Pursuant to this mandate, the Department of Justice maintains a bureau called
Public Attorneys' Office which renders free legal assistance in almost all courts in the
country.
Public interest law practice is also lawyering for the poor, just like traditional legal
aid. The fundamental difference is that the peoples lawyers extend legal services to the
poor not merely because the client cannot afford to pay legal fees, but because the
clients' poverty and the injustice committed against them result from a social system
that needs to be changed. Commitment to social change is therefore an essential
component of their legal services. Unlike the typical pro bono lawyer, the peoples
lawyers do not limit themselves to the generally accepted interpretation and use of the
law to uphold and protect their clients interest. They know that in an elite-dominated
society, the law is merely the expression of elite interests. Instead, they take a critical
view of the law and what the law should be from the perspective of the disenfranchised
or marginalized client.
Unlike the traditional practitioner who pleads the client's cause during adversarial
proceedings with the cold neutrality of a skilled legal technician, the peoples lawyers
fight with passion and dedication to the legal as well as the social cause of the client,
pleading such cause in and outside the courtroom or legal fora, in dialogues and
negotiations, in networking and building alliances, in street rallies, in media, in
legislative inquiries and hearings, and in symposia and conferences.

THE SIX BASIC PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE THE PUBLIC INTEREST LAWYER

According to Atty. Frederico M. Gapuz, the objectives of lawyering for the people
cannot be achieved immediately. Rather, these are a life-long dream that must be
shared, not only by shedding our sweat, tears, but probably our blood. We may not
achieve this dream, but well take the first step towards a just and humane government.
Hence in realizing these objectives, public interest lawyers are guided by six
basic principles in the handling of a public interest case:
1.The issue fundamentally affects the lives of a large number of people, usually a
sector or our society or even the whole society itself.

2.The issue arose out of a conflict or rights or interests and exploitation and
oppression of the numerous poor by the tiny privileged sector and /or government policy
or program.
3.Unlike the traditional practitioner, the public interest lawyer views and handles
the legal issue and the case in the larger context of the nature and problems of our
society.
4.having accepted the professional responsibility to handle the public interest
case, the lawyer initiates and assists in a process whereby the public interst issue and
the legal battle are utilized for organizing, and raising the social awareness, unity and
militancy of the clients and those people who support the cause of the clients.
5.The legal battle is not confined to the courtroom. The public interest lawyer
uses what the great lawyer, the late jose W. Diokno called meta-legal tactics , mobilizing
and utilizing the clients strength, unity and militance, bringing the issues to the public,
and rallying support for the clients cause.
6.In the handling of the case, the public interest lawyer interacts with his clients in
a mutually beneficial way whereby he or she learns and deepens his or her commitment
to the clients struggle for the empowerment and betterment of their lives. The
relationship is broadened from a mere professional one to a unity of understanding of
the problems of Philippine society and common goals for fundamental reforms.
Atty. Arlene "Kaka" J. Bag-ao, believes that alternative lawyering is not simply a
career but an advocacy for a particular way of life for lawyers and legal advocates;
alternative lawyering is a life that is not based on sacrifices and compromises, but a
choice and a lifelong commitment.
On the other hand, Atty. Angelito Ramos, opinioned that the widely accepted
concept of alternative lawyering is the practice of law catering mainly the marginalized,
the oppressed and the poor, or those who could not afford legal services, I could say
that it is more risky that most fields in the practice of law, yet monetarily, some view it as
the least rewarding. The rewards in this kind of practice mostly come from the sense of
altruism that the lawyer has done something that is good. It enhances the image of the
lawyers who have for the long time been vilified, from the lowly streets to immortal
literary works.
Ideally, this kind of practice should not have been called "alternative lawyering" at
all. To do so, would be to underscore the all too obvious reality that the law is far from
the grasp of the poor. Besides, the poor comprises most of our population, thus, serving
them should not be an alternative but a mainstream undertaking.
After all, "alternative lawyering" is just living up the oath that lawyers took - that they will
delay no man for money or malice.