may 13, 2003 what daydreaming can do to you

(Note: I wrote the first part of these logs, from May to October 2003, initially as a form of release, with no intention of making them public. Then I was told of this site’s existence. I guess there’s no harm really in publishing my personal take on anything and everything under the sun. I wanted to retain the title e-legal musings that’s why I thought of posting these previous logs while writing current ones in the coming days).


There is something about the legal profession that makes daydreaming the most sought-after refuge of lawyers trying to escape the drudgery of their work or their existence, or both. To the 30-something and still very much single junior associate or the solo (old enough to be your grandpa) practitioner with the tattered briefcase who refuses to retire, daydreaming offers a short, but welcome, respite from the endless paperwork and deadlines that have to be met.

It is during one of these daydreaming moments (actually it’s almost 6 p.m. already) that this column was conceived. Surely, why should I care about the reply-affidavit waiting to be finished when my baby is eagerly waiting for her “mamay” to come home from the law office where she works. Would it really matter if my pleading was two or three pages less than that of my opponent's? Would those pages have any impact at all on the SARS victims who have traveled to the beyond? Aww-shucks, there goes another “live the moment” and “carpe diem” column. I’m sorry, that’s not where I’m headed. I’m just bored, that’s all. I should have taken up medicine.

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Why e-legal? As today’s starlets would say, “Wala lang.” (This expression is a very handy answer to use specially when you can’t think of anything better to say. Actually, what it means is that “wala lang akong ma-say.”).

I thought of riding on the wave of the electronic revolution by prefixing this column with the ubiquitous “e” and playing on the word “illegal.” Lest you have the wrong impression, however, this is not about the internet as applied to the law profession. Rather, this column is merely a random take on anything that is seemingly related to lawyers and the law in general and almost about anything that happens in between the author’s lawyering duties and family life. It’s not a legal advisory column—I have no plans of running for senator or any other public office.

Besides, I have no talent for dishing out impromptu legal advice as if the law is at the tip of my fingers. Without my rules of court or revised penal code beside me, I am like a fish out of the ocean. That’s why I am greatly awed by legal practitioners (especially the showbiz-bound) who appear on TV announcing to all non-legal persons out there that their equally-famous clients did not commit the crime they have been accused of.

Of course, it's so easy to say “under the law” or “as held by the Supreme Court” or “pursuant to the rules on evidence” and such other legal gobbledygook while making “papungay” before the cameras and gingerly touching the lapel of one’s Armani suit but hey, it takes a special kind of person to do that. Not every lawyer can act. Of course, it helps if your client is the former president of the Republic of the Philippines. In which case, it’s ok to act cute before the cameras. If I had the former President as a client, I would not need my civil code around. I will only need a wristband. Orange if you please.