9 September 2022

Be grateful for your life. Every detail of it, and your face will come to shine like a sun, and everyone who
sees it will be made glad and peaceful. Persist in gratitude, and you will slowly become one with the Sun
of Love, and Love will shine through you its all-healing joy. (Rumi, 1207-1273 CE)

I am grateful for the people who showed me what it is I need to change in my life. Who showed me that I
can always change my mind.

Yesterday, I visited two barangays with the hope of bringing the legal profession, i.e. legal service to the
remote areas. I am grateful that they receive me well. For the last three months of my stay here I tried to
offer my services to the twenty barangays of the municipality. This is what I came here to do, to practice
and do a good turn for my townmates. This was the promise I made to God to do if I passed the bar. This
is why I am doing this. As I go along doing it, questions suddenly popped up, like whether I am doing it
the proper way, though I thought of it before, and I would like to test the idea if it is even feasible or
possible by doing it outright. I asked myself if the method I am using is outmoded or primitive or if it is
against the canons of professional responsibilities. And whether I am doing it the wrong way for doing it
alone when all the trend in delivering services are collaboration of various groups or individuals. Am I
being a lone ranger? Am I being stubborn and stupid for ignoring the trend? Am I being the Bible’s
prodigal “son” who is trying to strike it on its own? Am I trying to prove something? No. I am just trying
to do my role, my part as an individual and private person. Am I being ungrateful to the local government
that permitted me to practice? Am I ruffling feathers or rocking the boat? Or am I even asking the right
questions? Maybe not, I am just trying to fulfill my duties.

This is what I believe how to demonstrate my gratitude to God and my people whom I owe my life and
my identity and community. This is for my family, the legacy I wanted to leave behind when I’m gone. A
legacy of service and honor, for God and my people. The question then that often leads to doubt in doing
this is whether it is even right to do this thing when I am barely making enough in my practice. I have a
father and sister and niece to help out, a kid to raise, debts to be paid. But then I am grateful that I have
this opportunity to test and experiment the idea. This idea was not new, I am just testing whether this
concept is applicable and effective within our community. Or am I just obsessing with the idea and acting
compulsively into testing it without much thought? Am I even cut out for this kind of work? I believe I
thought about doing this long enough, actually my whole adult life.

I like to persist in doing my part in showing gratitude. To make it as my way of life. Maybe I forgot how
to be thankful. The gauge, perhaps is that I lost my possessions and properties, my marriage or perhaps
this is a sign of bad stewardship, of being a bad and foolish servant that disqualify me from doing the
service I am trying to do; I am representing myself to do. Maybe I am just trying to teach myself how to
be grateful. To be humble. Maybe if I experience enough hardship, I would be able to count my blessings,
especially the simplest of all, the mere fact that I am alive and breathing. That there is no need to perform,
no need to tire myself out doing what I think needs to be done, the fact that I chose to put up a law office
here is more than enough for me and my people to be grateful for. A writer said that a lighthouse does not
run around showing its light, it just stood there shining. Lighthouses are meant to warn the ships at sea
that if they get too close to it, it means that they are in danger of running aground. Maybe this is what I
should do, just be here and try to be a lighthouse, to serve as a warning sign, a signage to remind my
people to stay on the right course (the legal course?) Maybe the presence of a private lawyer, a private
law practioner is enough to tow the people in line. To make them realize that we are a government of law
and not of men. That there are laws that properly govern human interactions. And that breaking them
entail a corresponding punishment. That those in authority are not invincible and they too are governed by
the rule of law. And those they are to govern, are not powerless against them that the latter would rather
resort to putting the law into their hands against the oppressive hand of those in authority. That the law is
really impartial, both to those in power as well as those we say are powerless against the former. Am I
being grandiose? The town has already produced a number of professionals, especially in the legal
profession and one facebook user who made a comment with one of my cousin’s posts when I passed the
bar was that we are not the first family who produced lawyers. It just means maybe that my cousin should
not make a big deal out of it. Maybe she’s right. But I am the one who is fool and stupid enough to put up
a private law office in this town. The rest chose to be in the government, or practice elsewhere. Which is
understandable because law practice here is not lucrative nor it is prestigious. A starting young lawyer
will not make money here to recoup the money spent in the law school, nor will one be able to lunch a
good practice or make a good and reputable practice here. Like them and those who entered in the law
school late in their career, I also have responsibilities and duties to fulfill, debts to paid and a reputable
practice to build. But what is really my motive behind doing my practice here is what made the people
suspicious. Am I making myself known so that someday I could bank on it and run for local election? I
can’t blame them, that was the trend, of the local politicians here and the people are aware of it. That is
the way to go if one has political ambition in the local government, in the local election, as I learned from
the people I encountered while trying to do this work.

During my visit it was suggested by the councilman who accommodated me that since they don’t know
me, I should attend their assembly to make myself known to the rest of the council and say something I
would like to tell them and for them to ask me something. When I started this, I told myself that who am
I is not as important as the service I am trying to offer and the work I am trying to do. The question got
me thinking whether one can actually separate the message from the messenger. The service being
offered to the servant doing the service. Whether doing what I am trying to do made me come across as
fake and pretender rather than true and genuine with my efforts. Maybe the saying that the road to hell is
paved with good intentions is true. Perhaps I am leading myself to hell. Or maybe, I should change my
intention into a bad one to lead me to heaven? I really don’t know that’s why I want to find out.

I remember, after graduating from high school, one of the incumbent politicians then approached my
mother to ask me to run for SK elections the following year. I refused. I told her I am not interested. That
I want to go to college. Maybe because of that refusal she never bothered to make an effort or encouraged
me to go to college. I just have this feeling that she has no confidence in me that I would make it. Or
maybe I am not good enough to be invested with money to be sent to college. I also felt this way with one
of my aunts and uncles (I even felt this while in law school from the people around me, especially from
some of the professors). But that was not the reason I decided to get a college degree (and later a law
degree), it was more for my siblings and my family maybe for myself and this urge within that I need to
do something. To give them a better life than we have growing up, yes to make us better persons and
citizens. I tried because I believe they are worth my sacrifice. That is the same reason I have in putting up
the law office here. I believe my people are worth my service. As to whether, to their mind, I am the right
person to do it, is up to them to decide. I am here and I am doing my best to apply what I learned and to
learn from them as well. I know with some degree of naivete that I may not have a lucrative practice here,
but it is up to me to have a worthwhile and fulfilling practice. I stand by that idea, I stand by my faith in
myself, my people and with God. That is what keeps me going in the face of resistance and opposition.
And for that I am grateful, that is a sign that I really need to do this. That I hit upon something worthwhile
and of value, as one writer said. And I am banking on it. I’m banking on the vision and make it my life’s
mission. And maybe it will heal me in the process.