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Let me then welcome our new brethren to the fraternity of the law—this
preeminent, exacting and exciting profession where many aspire to belong but to
which only a chosen few are admitted. It is a profession that has behind it a history
of nobility and greatness, responsible for providing rhyme, order and reason to this
restless world. Its immanent involvement in matters of the mind and spirit, its
obsession for truth and justice, and its quest for a better life for all, are its core
philosophies that deal with the essentiality of man himself.

***

Let me share with you one of my most loved articles regarding the Legal Profession.
This was delivered by Hon. Josue N. Bellosillo who was Senior Associate Justice on
the occasion of the Oath-taking of the successful 1999 Bar candidates. I find the
article realistic and hopeful; speaks well not only to the successful Bar candidates
but also to law students and those who aspire to be part of the legal profession
someday.

***

May I especially address therefore our New Members: You are now welded to these
sublime ideals, as all other advocates and ministers of the law in the past had been.
You are, like them, vested with singular task of furthering the goals of the
profession and carrying on its best traditions. But, unlike them, you also bear as
new lawyers of this millennium the responsibility of linking and reconciling these
time-honored beliefs, values and practices with the insuperable demands of a
modern world in the throes of transition and change.

These are troubled and troubling times. Barely has the dust of the new millennium
settled when mankind already appears to be hurtling towards some unknown
destination, irresistibly propelled by forces revolutionizing human thought and
behavior in ways unforeseen and incomprehensible, and the institution of the law
has not spared of the effects of the extraordinary phenomenon. The manifold
discoveries and advances in science and technology that affect the practice and
administration of the law have already caused permutations in juridical principles
which in the past only belonged to the realm of the improbable and unimaginable.

How then have lawyers been conducting themselves to respond to the impositions
of these critical times? The evolution of the practice of law as a formal institution

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has indeed been remarkable for the past eight centuries. Since the time law
practitioners in 13th century England were granted the right and privilege of
appearing before the courts to the exclusion of all other advocates, the profession
has endeavored to adhere faithfully to its duty of upholding the law and living
greatly in it.

The lawyers then, by dint of their sacred trust, were considered a political
aristocracy, a class by themselves, a superior breed of learned and dedicated
individuals. They helped shape and formulate norms of behavior which by constant
application gradually developed into an effective mechanism for social regulation,
interaction and discipline. Lawyers were then held with much respect and reverence
so that into their hands was committed humanity’s final deliverance from inequity
and oppression.

Over the years however, man’s primal admiration if not reverence for the legal
profession gradually waned. A tectonic shift in the public perception of lawyers has
developed, and it is not a coveted image to behold! Time was when law, medicine
and theology formed the classic triad of learned discipline, each ministering to a
basic concern of man—justice, life and death. But one wonders now if law is still a
part of that triumvirate of ancient professions. For it seems to be the fashion these
days not only to ascribe to the law profession, rightly or wrongly, the grievous sins
of falsehood, greed and justice, but even to assail and undermine its worth.

Desidirius Erasmus once said that lawyers were the “most learned species of
profoundly ignorant men!” And an epitaph on which was written, “Here lies a lawyer
and an honest man”, elicited the wry observation that times must indeed be hard
for two persons to be buried in the same grave! The implication of these, sadly
enough, is that there has been a virtual abandonment by lawyers of the noble
tenets of their profession that endowed them, in the first place, with moral
ascendancy and suasion over their fellowmen.

My friends, we have to commit ourselves to pursue our calling in the great tradition
of those who came before us with utmost rationality, honesty, integrity and
dedication. In this light, I urge you to help set the tone from hereon for the new
practice of law and be active participants in the lofty endeavor. Redirect its course
and raise it up to the glamour, the elegance, the enchantment of the legal
profession.

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I have trepidations when I talk about enchantment in the disenchanted society. But,
given your youth, your vitality, the “fire in your belly” in the words of Holmes, and
your fresh, untrammeled and uncorrupted vision of the future, you can transform
this inert knowledge, as it is in your power to do, into a kinetic, living law and help
reinvent the law profession into a potent defender of truth and authentic purveyor
of justice.

But, you must first reconstruct yourselves by deconstructing your lives. Reject and
discard what is wrong, wicked and false. Center instead on what is central and
essential to man. For the overall effect of a life well lived, according to Thomas
Moore, is a transformation in culture, a deep reorientation away from the imperial
heroics of progress and futurism towards an appreciation of a rich past and the
renaissance of an old wisdom.

It is therefore imperative for the profession to distance itself from the seducing
influence of passing wealth, fame and glory, and return to the immoral virtues of
Truth, Justice, Integrity and Love. For these are matters of the mind and spirit with
which the practice of law is essentially intertwined. Therefore, resolve not to be part
of the transgressions inflicted by men upon men; resolve not to cause the afflictions
that infest society and the law profession; develop among yourselves a uniform
sense of outrage for what is false and what is unjust, a sense of unity and
coherence in the practice of law by focusing not only on your own self but also on
society, on man and his fundamental rights.

If you center your goal and happiness only on obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Law,
and even passing the most difficult Bar examinations, your life may simply end
there, for you derive your identity and the meaning of your existence only from a
law diploma and a certificate that you pass the Bar. Pathetic and tragic indeed that
this early you should cease to exist! You must refuse to die; you must refuse to give
in; you must refuse to give up. You must rage and rebel against narrow and self-
seeking concerns. Widen your vision instead and expand your goals outward—from
self to family to community to country and ultimately to all men—like concentric
circles from the ripples of a stone cast into a lake.

Young lawyers, make a good and meaningful start, then move on and share in the
unfolding of the Divine Plan for the whole mankind. For it is only in sharing with

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others your spirit, your hear, your mind, your soul—by giving strength to the weak,
voice to those who have none, and hope to the hopeless—that you will find genuine
meaning and substance in the law profession. Then you will know—truly know—
what it takes to be an authentic lawyer. And when you do, you will become…

The impossible possible Philosopher’s man,

The man who has the time to think enough,

The central man, the human globe, responsive as a mirror of a voice, the man of
glass

Who in a million diamonds sums us up.

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