Legal Aid and Development

(Jose W. Diokno)

On September 23, 1972, martial law was imposed on the Philippines. The more
than eight years of martial rule that have ensued had an unintended, but
nonetheless profound effect on legal aid in my country.

Before martial rule, Philippine society was far from perfect. But it had a
political system that was outwardly democratic: a constitution and laws that,
at least in theory, recognized the rights proclaimed in the Universal
Declaration as legal rights; an independent and generally upright judiciary; a
Congress that seemed to be making efforts, though haltingly and mostly
unsuccessfully, to solve some social ills; and a press that was one of the most
free in the world. Given this condition, relatively few lawyers and laymen
questioned the system: what they sought was to make the system work as it
should. So legal aid concentrated on enforcing legal rights, with occasional
proposals to amend the law. Legal aid was, in a word, apolitical.

Martial law changed that. By destroying all semblance of democracy; by

abolishing Congress and impairing both the independence and the powers of
the Judiciary; by controlling all communications media and managing the
news; by stifling criticism except when it is ineffective; by outlawing strikes,
peaceful public meetings and student councils; by hounding and harassing
lawyers, leaders and organizers of trade unions and of student, peasant and
slum dweller organizations; by resorting to arbitrary arrests, prolonged
detention under inhuman conditions without charges or trial, torture,
degradation and executions formally unofficial but officially sanctioned of what
it is pleased to call “subversives,” a term it has never clearly defined; by
substituting military commissions for civil courts in trial of these
“subversives;” by justifying itself with the assertion that “western-style”
democracy is not fitted to the Philippine temperament, needs, traditions and
values, although that system had functioned, with more or less success, for the
past 70 years—in short, by spreading a chilling climate of fear over the nation
and by steadily militarizing social institutions, martial law has led lawyers
and laymen to question not only the political system of martial rule, but even
the social, economic, military and cultural structures—national and
international—that led to martial law and nurture, sustain and prolong it. As
a consequence, martial law added a new dimension to legal aid: by politicizing
lawyers and laymen, it politicalized legal aid.

It is from this perspective—the perspective of legal aid practice in a

neocolonial, dependent, developing society under authoritarian rule—that I
shall try to answer the questions suggested by the organizers of this seminar:
“1) Legal aid can be looked upon as a resource of development, as it opens up
ways for the obtaining of more control over their own development by the
people. How do you view this? Which are in your opinion the possibilities and
the limitations of legal aid, considering your own activities and experiences?”

1.1. Legal aid has traditionally viewed its function as providing legal
solutions to legal problems of the poor by vindicating their legal rights.
This is a valuable function in itself: every triumph of justice is cause for
celebration. Unfortunately, legal aid limited to this traditional function
contributes little, if anything, to development. The reason is not that
legal aid for this type operates entirely within the existing legal order:
legal aid of all types must do so to remain legal. The reason is that
traditional legal aid accepts uncritically the basic rightness of the legal
order and of the social system and institutions within which it operates.
Its premise is that injustice is caused by the frailties of the men who
make or enforce law, not by the inequity of the social system itself. Its
thrust is to uphold the law, not to transform society. Its method for legal
change is gradual and incremental, not abrupt and radical. But
development is social change, often fundamental and rapid. So
traditional legal aid is of limited value to development.

1.2. Traditional legal aid is, in fact, the lawyer’s way of giving alms to the
poor. Like alms, which provide temporary relief to the poor but do not
touch the social structures that keep the poor poor, traditional legal aid
redresses particular instances of injustice but does not fundamentally
change the structures that generate and sustain injustice. And like
alms, traditional legal aid carries with it the germ of dependence that
can prevent those it serves from evolving into self-reliant, inner
directed, creative and responsible persons who think for themselves and
act on their own initiative. Unless this danger is guarded against,
traditional legal aid can retard rather than promote development: for
above all else, development is human development.

1.3. To contribute effectively to development, legal aid should politicalize its

traditional function. Legal aid lawyers should determine whether their
client’s legal difficulties are personal problems or social problems, that
is, whether they affect only their clients or an entire social sector or
community. If the latter, they should involve their clients in seeking to
find the specific social cause of the legal problems, the particular social
structure and social forces that generated them, and together attempt
to work out both legal and social solutions. The resulting awareness of
the social causes of injustice will evoke the determination on the part of
lawyer and client alike to change law and society to correct injustice.
And that is the beginning of development.
1.4. Social awareness can be heightened if legal aid makes full use of its
educative function. By publishing legal primers in the language of the
people, by conferences with clients, and, insofar as possible, by the way
litigation is conducted, legal aid lawyers can teach people not only what
their legal rights are, but also what these rights should be; and equally
important, how inadequate existing legal processes and institutions
often are to vindicate those rights, and why they are inadequate.

1.5. Heightened awareness of problems and causes, however will not lead to
action—in fact, it can lead to apathy—unless it is coupled with
awareness of possessing power to act. So legal aid lawyers should
encourage the people they serve to organize and act collectively with
others similarly situated; and to invest and use metalegal tactics that
transcend ordinary legal procedures, without openly defying existing
law, to exert pressure for change in law and society.

1.6. Above all else, legal aid lawyers in developing societies under
authoritarian rule should realize that by serving their clients, they are
in fact serving the people. For the poor, the dispossessed, and the
oppressed they defend are the people. That is so in my country and, I
believe, in other developing countries in Asia. In determining their
conduct, therefore, legal aid lawyers in such countries must strive to be
constantly aware of what the people want, and constantly seek the most
effective ways in which they, as legal aid lawyers, may use their
knowledge and their skills, on the occasions of legal aid, to help the
people get what the people want.

1.7. What the people of the Philippines and the rest of Asia want is not much
different from what people everywhere want. They want to have enough
to live, of course; but with as much fervor, they also want freedom from
abuses and from foreign domination. For Asians, freedom from want is
not enough. Asians must have respect for their dignity and control of
their own lives as well.

1.8. To support the people’s strivings for these goals, legal aid must become
critical and creative—yet remain humble. Like traditional legal aid,
critical legal aid cannot—and must not—operate either outside or
against the law, regardless of how restrictive and repressive existing law
may be. But it can and must devise new tactics and forms of legal action,
or discover new ways of using old tactics and forms of legal action. And
it must defend basic human rights even when—indeed, specially when—
they are denied recognition as legal rights or are systematically violated.
In such cases, legal aid must take advantage of every occasion to arouse
 the conscience of those in power to the inhumanity of the system they
maintain and how it contradicts the very values they proclaim; and by
thus weakening their belief in their righteousness, to dispose them to do
justice and accept change.

1.9. Moreover, legal aid should not limit its advocacy to individual rights. It
should seek to vindicate collective rights as well; the sovereignty of the
people, and the right of national and local communities, both functional
and territorial, to survival, to development and to self-determination
which, in the case of sub-national communities, should be as broad as is
consistent with the common good: In short, the proper scope of legal aid
in developing nations is to protect and vindicate both the rights of man
and the rights of the people.

1.10. One danger should zealously be guarded against: the tendency to direct
the activities of legal aid clients. Legal aid lawyers must always be
conscious that their role is purely supportive. Their task is to carry out
decisions of those they serve to the extent that this can be done legally,
not to make decisions for them.

1.11. Legal aid of this kind is much more difficult—and dangerous—than

traditional legal aid. Apart from the vicissitudes inherent in the very
nature of legal aid, some factors that restrict its effectiveness are:

– Snarled communications between lawyers and legal aid clients,

caused by differences in their social standing, training,
experience, and ways of life and thought, aggravated by the fact
that law in developing countries has often been adapted from the
law of the former colonial sovereign, and is written in a foreign
tongue which is also the language of the courts and government
agencies, a language which lawyers are thoroughly familiar with
but which cannot be read or understood by the very people who
need legal aid;

– The impotence of legal processes when confronted by military

force; and

– The sharpening of the painful dilemma that lies at the core of the
practice of the law. For lawyers to seek justice from a regime that
systematically violates human rights is to recognize the
legitimacy of that regime; yet to forbear is to leave the oppressed
defenseless, and to acquiesce in the rule of repression. Every
defeat a lawyer suffers is a rape of justice by force; yet every
victory he gains polishes the image of the regime and prolongs its
 reign. This excruciating dilemma has led some lawyers to
abandon the practice of law and adopt other roles, occasionally at
the cost of imprisonment or death.

1.12. These are some of the lessons we Philippine lawyers have learned about
legal aid under martial law. Taken together, they are a humbling
experience, for they teach us that, although legal aid can contribute to
development, its contribution will not be decisive. Yet this lesson in
humility may be the most valuable contribution that legal aid can make
to development: the lesson that to win justice, the poor, the dispossessed
and the oppressed—who are the people—must rely, not on legal aid, but
on their own organized efforts. In the end, justice will be won only by
social liberation. And to be real, liberation must be self liberation.

“2) Do you regard legal aid as a tool for change in the legal, social and economic
spheres? Which is the role of culture? Which is in your opinion the
interrelationship between ‘universal’ legal standards (e.g., human rights) and
the sense of justice of groups you are working with?”

2.1 I have discussed the value of legal aid as a tool for change in answering
the first question.

2.2 As to the role of culture, I believe the sense of injustice is universal. Every
human being knows when he is being unjustly treated. What acts are
unjust and under what circumstances, however, may vary from one society
to another, depending on the historical experience of each, and the kind of
structures and institutions each has evolved. In matters of fundamental
rights, most differences between people are differences in degree rather
than in kind, in emphasis or ranking rather than in recognition or outright
rejection. Take the right to life, for example, I know of no people, however
primitive, that approve of murder. But what is not murder that is, what
reasons justify the taking of life—may differ from one society to another.
Or take the right to freedom of expression. Some cultures inhibit criticism
or disagreement because of debts of gratitude, deference to age, or to avoid
confrontation. This inhibition, however, holds only when the matter is not
deemed important enough to risk social disapproval. So the right to free
expression is universally felt; what varies only are the occasions proper for
its exercise.

2.3 I have not come across any fundamental divergence between the concept
of human rights as expressed in the Universal Declaration and the sense
of justice of the groups I have been working with, except for one group: a
group of tribal Filipinos who, on occasion still resort to head hunting and
who settle differences between and within tribes by procedures of
 customary law. These procedures differ so radically from those of lowland,
Christian Filipinos, that the procedural safeguards in criminal cases set
out in the Universal Declaration are inherently inapplicable,.
Nevertheless, the substantive aspects of their customary law accord full
respect to fundamental rights.

“3) How do you relate your legal aid activities to structural conflicts? What is
meant here are both conflicts with privileged groups and government
authorities and conflict arising from international economic structures (for
instance the activities of foreign corporations)? Could you indicate in this
context which is or might be the significance of:

a) the working methods of an organization for development

cooperation like NOVIB.

b) The role of human rights and legal aid in the foreign policy
and the policy of development cooperation of a country like The
Netherlands.”

3.1. I have discussed the role of legal aid in structural conflicts in answering
the first question.

3.2. Whether organizations for development cooperation, like NOVIB, can

have good or bad effects on legal aid programs in the Third World
depends upon whether the working methods of the development
cooperation organization:

– Foster a sense of self-reliance or of dependence on the part of the

legal aid groups who are recipients of cooperation; and
– Constitute attempts to control or direct the program, or merely to
review the progress it has made.

The working methods of the development cooperation organization

should be premised, not on its having extended assistance, but on its
being as interested as the recipient legal aid group in achieving the
objectives of legal aid. This should lead the assisting organization to
recognize that the legal aid group has better knowledge of conditions
in the country in which it operates, and defer to the latter’s
determination of goals and choice of methods. On their part, legal
aid groups should strive to make the most effective use of whatever
cooperation they receive, and as rapidly as possible supplant it with
cooperation from local groups and organizations.
3.3. I am reluctant to discuss the role of human rights and legal aid in the
foreign policy of industrialized countries. Of course, human rights are a
legitimate international concern; but the cause of human rights is
debased when it is used to promote the selfish interests of developed
nations.

3.4. As to development cooperation, I believe that aid from a foreign

government usually hurts, rather than helps, the people of developing
nations. This is because, unlike non-governmental organizations,
foreign governments do not extend development aid for purely
disinterested reasons; they can apply a variety of sanctions to erode the
sovereignty of the recipient nation; and the aid they extend helps to
sustain existing social structures.

3.5. Since it is unlikely, however, that present governments of developing

countries would reject foreign aid or that governments of developed
nations would stop such aid, I suggest that:

– Developed nations should cut off all military aid to governments

who hold power through military force;

– Developed countries should cut off all aid to governments that

prohibit legal aid by lawyers in private practice, or who threaten,
harass or imprison lawyers for extending legal aid;

– Developed countries should limit development aid to projects or

programs which are likely to bring about changes in social
structures that inflict injustice; and

– Developed countries should channel more and more of their

development aid to responsible non-governmental institutions,
like church groups and non-profit foundations, that are free of
government control, and are actively engaged in projects and
programs to eliminate poverty or at least provide the poor, the
deprived and the oppressed with the means to meet their basic
needs.
A Primer on Developmental Legal Advocacy
(Free Legal Assistance Group, 1995)

What is developmental legal advocacy?

Developmental legal advocacy [DLA] is the underlying philosophy of FLAG. It

was formulated and originally articulated in the Philippines by the late Atty.
Jose W. Diokno in two seminal papers delivered in 1980 and 1981. DLA
represents an attempt to make legal aid more effective in the areas of human
rights protection and development. It is derived from a structural perspective
on the causes of injustice and an instrumentalist view of the law.

What is DLA’s objective?

The objective is to remedy injustice not merely by enforcing the law but also by
changing the law and underlying social structures which perpetrate or sustain
injustice and inhibit development. Primary reliance in attaining this objective
is placed on the efforts of the people themselves with DLA lawyers performing
a supportive role.

How did DLA come about?

The emergence of DLA was a product of both necessity and insight; it was not
born full-grown. It evolved over the years from these beliefs which FLAG
lawyers shared and which their experience amply proved:

• That people, not lawyers, should determine what kind of society

they wanted and what changes were needed to achieve it;

• That these changes were fundamental, not just reforms, and had
to be buttressed by law; and

• That people should organize themselves and work together with

others if they were to gain power enough to make the changes
they wanted.

In FLAG’s view, traditional legal aid had been unable to cope with a martial
law situation. This was not unusual nor unexpected: the major role of
traditional legal aid is to see that the law is followed in individual cases – which
is to say that the main task of traditional legal aid is to maintain the status
quo with some reforms. Moreover, under martial law, the people saw that the
law itself clearly violated their human rights and perpetuated social and
economic structures that did so.
So FLAG decided to provide another form of legal aid that, for want of a better
name, it called developmental legal advocacy.1

What is the role of DLA in society?

While the late Atty. Diokno recognized the limitations of traditional legal aid
in the development process, he harbored no illusions as to the possible
contribution of DLA. He described the role of DLA as “severely circumscribed,
a basically supportive function whose value lies as much in educating people
on their legal rights, in awakening them to the causes of their situation, and
in assisting them to organize themselves and act together, as in helping them
vindicate their legal rights.” Nevertheless, the distinctive feature of DLA is
that it represented an attempt to make some contribution to the development
process.

The concept of DLA therefore emerged to address the inadequacies in the

existing provision of legal aid by focusing on structural change to remedy
injustice and the empowerment of the communities concerned to effect such
change.

What are the basic principles of DLA?

DLA has as its starting point two fundamental tenets. The first is the vision
being pursued, namely, the creation of just social structures which would
facilitate development towards the full realization of human rights. This
emphasis on a structural approach and a consequently politicized form of legal
aid was a by-product of martial law. Martial law compelled “legal aid lawyers”
to confront the injustice which resulted not only from violations of the law but
also from the increasing of violations by the law. This led a number of lawyers
to question the legitimacy of the legal system and underlying social structures.
It was in this context that the vision of supporting structural change was
articulated.

The second fundamental tenet underlying DLA is the recognition that where
injustice is perpetrated by the law or by economic and social structures, legal
aid can have a limited but useful value. This was FLAG’s experience during
the 1970s. Nevertheless even this recognition was seen by the late Atty. Diokno
as contributing to development, although “its contribution will not be decisive.”
He stated that one of the most valuable contributions DLA could make to the
development process was “the lesson that to win justice, the poor, the
dispossessed and the oppressed … must rely, not on legal aid, but on their own

1In 1980, Atty. Diokno referred to FLAG’s philosophy as developmental legal aid; FLAG changed the
word aid to advocacy in 1993, but retained the essential elements of its philosophy as originally
articulated.
organized efforts.” The emphasis is therefore placed on the efforts of the people
to bring about the necessary changes. The role of the DLA lawyer is to support
the community in effecting such change.

What then is FLAG’s role?

FLAG has therefore concentrated on public, rather than private, issues. FLAG
lawyers determine whether a prospective client’s legal difficulties stem from a
personal or a social problem, the latter being one that affects an entire
community or social sector. If the former, they refer the client to traditional
legal aid offices. If the latter, they accept the case.

One thing must be stressed: FLAG sees its role as purely supportive. The one
thing FLAG lawyers do not want is to make their clients dependent on them.
If they have learned one lesson from their experience it is this: that clients
must rely on themselves, not on FLAG, to fashion a vision of a better, more
human society, and make that vision come true.

What strategies has FLAG adopted?

FLAG has adopted a two-part strategy to effect legal and social change
necessary for the promotion of human rights and development. The first part
of the strategy involves confronting the government with the detrimental
effects of its policies on the population and the discrepancies between rhetoric
and international standards on the one hand and reality on the other. This
part of the strategy is designed to make government doubt its own legitimacy
and undermine the support, both foreign and domestic, which it may enjoy.

The second part of the strategy focuses on the basic sectors and its designed to
increase their awareness of the causes of their problems and help them to
organize and mobilize themselves to resolve their problems.

What are the functions performed by FLAG lawyers in furtherance of this

strategy?

Functions performed by FLAG lawyers in furtherance of this two-part strategy

include legal services, education, advocacy and networking. A comprehensive
approach in the performance of these functions does not appear to be required
by DLA and FLAG lawyers adopted a selective approach in practice due in part
to resource considerations and to the specific needs of their clients.

How is DLA applied in the provision of legal services?

The provision of legal services to the community is one function of FLAG
lawyers. The theory of DLA influences the approach adopted by the lawyer in
the performance of this function.

DLA necessitates a holistic approach requiring the lawyer to engage in a more

critical analysis of the problem in order to identify its source and/or cause of
continuance over time. The response to the problem will generally be
conditioned by the FLAG lawyer’s perception of the law itself, notably, that the
law and not merely a misinterpretation of the law, can perpetuate injustice. A
distinction is therefore drawn between legality and legitimacy. While the law
will always be legal it will not necessarily be legitimate.

Following from this is a recognition of the inadequacies of the law and legal
processes. In this context a primary of exclusive reliance on litigation address
the client’s problem may be misplaced and the need to pursue other social and
legal solutions (metalegal solutions) is accepted.

Therefore, the starting point for a FLAG lawyer in handling a case will be a
critical analysis of the problem and a willingness to adopt not only judicial but
also metalegal tactics for its resolution.

DLA requires the lawyer to reorient his/her approach to the provision of legal
services. Thus:

(1) The FLAG lawyer’s starting point is to inform the clients of their
rights and the limitations of the legal system. The FLAG lawyer will
outline the limitations primarily to enable the client to avoid being
over reliant on the legal system to address their problems and to
motivate them to develop other legal and social solutions;

(2) S/he will involve the clients in seeking the social cause of the client’s
legal problem, the social structures and social forces that generated
them;

(3) The heightened awareness of the problems and causes, however, will
not lead to action – in fact, it can only lead to apathy – unless it is
coupled with awareness of possession the power to act. So FLAG
lawyers encourage the people they serve to organize and act
collectively with others; and to invent and use metalegal tactics,
mass actions that transcend ordinary legal procedures, without
openly defying existing law, to pressure for change in law and
society.
The transfer of knowledge from the lawyer to the community also helps to
demystify the law and render the legal system ore accessible to the client.

In formulating a response to the problem, the FLAG lawyer and client will
explore not merely a court oriented approach but also the use of metalegal
tactics which might assist in the resolution of the problem. Metalegal tactics
are particularly useful where rights are either denied through the operation of
the law itself or through ineffective enforcement mechanisms. Examples of
metalegal tactics include the use of petitions, mass attendance at hearings,
hunger strikes, and the like. It must be stressed that the role of the lawyer is
to encourage the client ot develop their own metalegal tactics where such
tactics would assist in the resolution of the problems.

How does DLA work in terms of the lawyer’s relationship with the client?

DLA envisages a departure from the traditional relationship which is usually

characterized by the clients’ dependence on the lawyer. DLA advocates the
establishment of a new type of relationship which would foster a sense of self-
reliance within the client and reduce his/her dependency on the lawyer.

It is evident that DLA requires considerable interaction with the clients. The
theory of DLA recognizes the importance of a quasi-organized client
community in order to articulate demands and to engage in a dialogue with the
lawyer as to the source of and possible solutions to problems. Thus, a FLAG
lawyer is involved in the process of organizing, a process with three distinctive
yet overlapping components: education, organizing and mobilization.

In all dealings with a client, the FLAG lawyer must always bear in mind –

First, that aside from his/her responsibility as a lawyer to

successfully litigate the client’s case, s/he also has a responsibility to
educate the client not only on what their rights are but also what their
rights should be;

Second, that in order to fulfill this responsibility, the lawyer must

fully explore with the client the causes and solutions to the problems by
means of verbal interaction;

Third, that the lawyer must always keep the client informed of
developments affecting the case, and should involve the client in the
decision-making process;

Fourth, that the client must always be encouraged to interrelate

with others and to organize themselves so they can act collectively; and
 Fifth, that the lawyer must avoid making the client dependent
upon him/her; and instead should always be receptive to ways to
strengthen the client’s self-reliance and creativity, so they can think for
themselves and act on their own initiative.

Thus, in interviewing the client, the FLAG lawyer must take great pains to
explain in the simplest terms what the law is, and what it should be; and
should also take pains to listen closely to what the client is saying, in order to
determine the client’s level of understanding.

What knowledge, skills and techniques must FLAG lawyers develop and
possess in order to effectively practice DLA?

These are:

• Knowledge of both local and international law on human rights;

• Knowledge of the national situation as well as the situation of the

social sector or community concerned;

• Interviewing skills: since effective communication with the client

is essential to DLA, it is important that the lawyer have good
interviewing skills;

• Litigation skills, which can be divided into the following:

* Marshalling the evidence by means of fact investigation and

discovery procedures;

* Researching the law;

* Preparing and filing pleadings;

* Preparing for pre-trial and trial;

* Examining and cross-examining witnesses;

* Introducing and offering exhibits.

• Negotiation skills; and

• Teaching skills.
What are the indicators that show whether a FLAG lawyer is really practicing
DLA?

The indicators are:

• Whether or not the lawyer discusses with the client the possible
causes and solutions to the client’s legal problem;

• Whether or not the lawyer takes pains to explain to the client not
only what his/her rights are, but what they should be, and why;

• Whether or not the lawyer involves the client in the decision-

making process in the handling of the case; and

• Whether or not the lawyer has avoided making the clients

dependent or reliant on him/her, and instead has encouraged the
clients to make their own decisions and take the initiative;

• Whether or not the lawyer has encouraged the client to

interrelate with others and to organize themselves to act
collectively.

What is the role of FLAG lawyers in providing education?

FLAG lawyers also provide educational services in pursuit of the strategy for
change. The role of the lawyer in this sphere is derived from the belief that
changes in unjust social structures must be brought about by those directly
affected. In order to effect such change, the people must be aware of their
rights and the inadequacy of legal processes and/or social institutions which
breed injustice and result in effective implementation of these rights, and why
they are inadequate. This awareness is a first step to enabling the community
to engage in a critical examination of their problems which, in turn, should
assist in the development strategies to address such problems. Te transfer of
knowledge to the clients is therefore an integral feature of DLA.

This transfer of knowledge can take place through the publication of primers
on legal rights and, at an informal level, by the manner in which litigation is
conducted or through radio programs.

FLAG lawyers also conduct paralegal training sessions. FLAG believes that
paralegal training can assist in the empowerment of the community, and in
helping people evolve “into self-reliant, inner-directed, creative and
responsible persons who think for themselves and act on their own initiative”
in addressing and working out solutions to their problems.
What is the role of FLAG lawyers in networking?

In furtherance of DLA, FLAG lawyers also engage in networking. The role of

the lawyer in this regard is to urge the community to cooperate with other
groups. This role addresses the alienation of the base sectors from each other
and the need to develop and strengthen cooperation between sectors.
Networking is not, however, confined to the base sectors and FLAG lawyers
engage in networking with other non-governmental organizations and peoples’
organizations in order to maximize resources and to create an effective division
of labor. It should be pointed out, however, that this division of labor is not a
rigid one and there is no question of the role of the lawyer going beyond the
purely judicial sphere.

What is the role of FLAG lawyers in advocacy?

FLAG lawyers also perform an advocacy role. The focus of the lawyer in this
context is on the organs of state notably government and legislature. This role
originates from the strategy to confront government with the detrimental
effects of its policies on the population and the inconsistencies between
government rhetoric, international standards and reality. In the performance
of this role, FLAG lawyers engage in research and documentation, drafting
critiques and position papers, drafting legislative bills, lobbying members of
Congress and participating in public hearings, campaigns and fact finding
missions. At an informal level, FLAG lawyers perform this role through the
effective use of pleadings during the course of litigation.

Why is DLA important?

DLA involves the lawyer in tasks beyond what are traditionally associated
with the legal profession.

DLA is essentially a pragmatic philosophy designed to make legal aid more

effective in the areas of human rights protection and development. Although
it evolved in the martial law period, DLA continues to retain its validity and
relevance in the Philippines today. Although DLA was significantly utilized to
vindicate civil and political rights, it is being increasingly used to vindicate
rights of an economic, social and cultural nature. The flexibility inherent in
the framework philosophy of DLA enables it to respond to the changing context
in which it operates and ensure its continuing relevance.

DLA is important because it is the cornerstone of being a FLAG lawyer.

Without a firm foundation in developmental legal advocacy, and certain
necessary skills, a FLAG lawyer will not be true to his/her commitment to the
organization, and would not be able to effectively render services to the poor
and the oppressed.