Philippine Legal Profession: History

This was one of my papers written during my Ll.M. studies at UST Manila in 1998-2000 as a FEU graduate studies fellow. Philippine Law Schools; History. In 1733, or 266 years ago, the University of Santo Tomas, which is older than Harvard University in the United States, opened a Faculty of Civil Law and a Faculty of Canon Law. From 1734 to 1800 (66 years), out of 3,360 students, it graduated only 40 students in its various law programs, to wit: 29 in Bachelor of Civil Law, 8 in Licentiate in Civil Law, and 3 in Doctor of Law, showing the rigid training in these courses. In 1898 the Universidad Literia Filipinas was established in Malolos, Bulacan and offered courses in law and notary public. It later moved to Tarlac. In 1899 Don Felipe Calderon (author of the 1899 Malolos Constitution) founded the Escuela de Derecho de Manila, which in 1924 was renamed the Manila Law School. In 1910 the College of Law of the University of the Philippines opened with 50 Filipino and American students. The first dean was Justice Sherman Moreland of the Philippine Supreme Court. He was replaced by George A. Malcolm, who later became a Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court. Other law schools followed: Philippine Law School, 1915; University of Manila College of Law, 1918; Far Eastern University Institute of Law, 1934; Southern College of Law, 1935; Arellano Law College, 1938; and Francisco Law School, 1940. Under the First Philippine Commission (1899) and the Second Philippine Commission (1900), laws were passed requiring the inspection of private schools, e.g. Act No. 74, which created the Department of Public Instruction; Act No. 459, or the Corporation Law; Act No. 2706; Act No. 3075. Under the Commonwealth Government, C.A. No. 180 was passed which created the Office of Private Schools (later called the Bureau of Private Schools). After World War II,, R.A. No. 74 was passed providing additional budget for the supervision of private schools. The latest law on legal education is R.A. No. 7662, also known as the "Legal Education Act of 1993", which, inter alia, created the Board of Legal Education.

Legal Education; history. In 1911 the only educational requirements to be a lawyer were a high school degree (as pre-law degree) and a 3-year law course. Later the pre-law requirement was raised to two

years of college work (associate in arts degree) in addition to a high school degree. In 1960, Sec. 6 of Rule 138 of the Rules of Court was amended by the Supreme Court increasing the pre-law requirement to a 4-year bachelor's degree (Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science) and increasing the law course to 4 years (Bachelor of Laws). This resulted in a dramatic decrease in law enrollment in 1960. For instance, at the University of the Philippines, from an enrollment of 196 students in 1959, it dropped to 28 in 1960. The University of the Philippines started the law aptitude test and interview by a screening committee as requirements for entry into its College of Law. In the 1960s to the 1980s the 4-year law course (Ll.B.)n was made up of 122 units which emphasize the bar subjects listed in Sec. 6, Rule 138 of the Rules of Court: civil law, criminal law, remedial law, legal ethics and legal forms, commercial law, political law, tax law, labor law, public corporation and public officers, and international law. The course included non-bar subjects: legal history, legal bibliography, statutory construction, jurisprudence, trial techniques, thesis and legal research, legal medicine, and practice court. The sources of Philippine legal education are (a) Spain, which gave it the Roman civil law and the canon law, (b) the United States, which gave it the English common law, and (c) Indonesia (thru the Majapahit Empire and the Shri Visaya Empire), which gave it the Islamic law. In 1988 the University of the Philippines launched a "core-elective curriculum" which allowed law students to enroll up to 20 percent of elective subjects. It hope to lead to specialization in legal education. In 1989 the Department of Education, Culture and Sports adopted a revised model law curriculum for the 4-year Bachelor of Laws degree composed of 51 subjects (124 units) which took effect in 1990. It offered more subjects on the legal profession, legal ethics, legal counselling, legal research and legal writing. From 1950 to 1960, 35 new law schools were opened. In 1972, there were 80 law schools in the country. In 1982 the number decreased to 45 law schools, 35 percent of which were located in Metro Manila. In the same year, there were 3 state-supported law schools: University of the Philippines College of Law, Mindanao State University, and Don Mariano Marcos University College of Law. The law schools accreditation system proposed by the Standing Committee on Legal Education and Bar Administration of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) is still pending with the Supreme Court for final action. In 1964 R.A. No. 3870 created the University of the Philippines Law Center to conduct continuing legal education programs and legal research and publications.

Bar Exams; Performance Rate Generally, between 20 to 30 percent of bar examinees pass the bar exams. A sample of the passing percentage is as follows: 1946, 19.39%; 1957, 19.85%; 1962, 19.39%; 1969,

28.00%; 1974, 35.02%; 1979, 49.51%; 1984, 22.55%; 1989, 21,26%; and 1991, 17.85%. The number of bar examinees has been increasing: 1973, 1,631; 1978, 1,890; 1983, 2,455; 1988, 2,824; and 1991, 3,196. In 1954, there were 14,000 Filipino lawyers; in 1977, 28, 000; and in 1992, 34,922. From 1946 to 1953, the passing percentage of most law schools was below the 50% level of the national passing percentage. The Philippine annual bar exams are administered every September by a committee created by the Supreme Court composed of one justice as chair and 8 lawyers, with a term of office of one year. The bar examinee must be at least 21 years of age, a Filipino citizen and a resident of the Philippines, of good moral character, has completed the required 4-year law course (Ll.B.) in a law school recognized by the Department of Education, Culture and Sports (now by the Commission on Higher Education and the Board of Legal Education).

Private Law Practice In a 1976 survey among lawyers conducted by the UP Law Center, it was discovered that only 23.4 percent were engaged in active private practice and that the rest were either employed in the government (32.2 percent) or private sector (38.6 percent). In 1962, 25 percent of lawyers were in active private practice. Law practice is complicated and it requires specialization. Under the martial law regime alone (1972-June 12, 1978), there were 1,473 presidential decrees, 708 letters of instructions, and 62 general orders. As of 1911, under the regime of the Philippine Commission, there were 2,092 statutes. As of 1970, there were 10,078 statutes (Republic Acts [Ras], Philippine Commission Acts [Acts], Commonwealth Acts [CAs]). The figures excluded local ordinances and administrative rules and regulations.

Popularizing the Law This complex situation gave rise to the need to "popularize the law". In the 1980s the UP Law Center launched a series of "programs in legal literacy, street law, or practical law" in cooperation with women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs), student organizations, and the local barangays (barangay legal education seminars). Certain sectors of society began to urge the Filipinization of the law (curriculum, textbooks, laws, court decisions). In other countries the popularization of their laws in their own native tongues was a normal rule of society, such as, for instance, in Indonesia where its national language, Bahasa Indonesia, is the official medium of instruction in law schools, and where "the enshrinement of customary law (is) part of the legal system". In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Irene Cortez, who once served as the dean of the UP College of Law: "xxx Where law is written and taught in a foreign language, it becomes more esoteric, its concepts more difficult to assimilate and retain. If it is difficult for those who undergo the professional training for lawyers, it would be even more difficult for the ordinary citizen. There are those of us in the Philippines who have begun to give serious

thought to using our own language in legal education. xxx."

Legal Education Act of 1993 Under R.A. No. 7662 (Legal Education Act of 1993), the focus of legal education are[1]: advocacy, counselling, problem solving, decision making, ethics and nobility of the legal profession, bench-bar partnership, and social commitment, selection of law students [2], quality of law schools, the law faculty, and the law curriculum[3], mandatory legal apprenticeship[4], and continuing legal education.

The Law Teacher The average law teacher is 51-55 years of age, married, male, with Bachelor of Laws degree as his highest degree, has bee teaching for less than 10 years, has a load of 10 to 12 hours a week, teaches Civil Law, derives less than 5 percent of his income from law teaching, teaches in a private law school, and has not published. More than 80 percent of the law faculty are part-time teachers. They are underpaid even in a highly subsidized state university such as the University of the Philippines. "A person who embraces teaching as a career takes the vow of poverty". Despite the financial constraints he faces, he plays a noble and important role in the training of future lawyers. And he has duties to comply with: "xxx The law teachers to be effective must endeavor for deeper understanding of the law, thru research and reflection. Through critical study, they also identify emerging trends and areas for reform and contribute towards making law an instrument of social development. Law teachers must principally assume the critical and predictive functions in the legal profession xxx." by MANUEL J. LASERNA JR. c. 1998