The Bangus Ultimatum

Could be useful. Download my micro-mini digests of Property cases for tomorrow’s discussion. (86k PDF file)

My friend, all theory is gray, but the Golden tree of life is green.
- Goethe

Classmates and friends urged me this week to try out for the Philippine Law Journal. I guess it’s because I tend to write really nerdy stuff as well as say pretentious things like “it satisfies socially-accepted aesthetic standards” instead of “it’s beautiful”. The PLJ is, of course, the gold standard for law nerdity in the Philippines. It’s not just a line in a resume. Membership in the Student Editorial Board of the PLJ means joining a pantheon, which includes the school’s most famous (or infamous) alumni.

I’ve made my choice. I didn’t sign up. Classmates are asking me why.

It’s going to take up too much time. Precious time that I would rather spend living away from SCRA and Lex Libris. Time I would rather spend breathing and living.

I love studying law. I love tracing its subtle logic, its fictions and flows as a system of knowledge, as method and ideology. That is precisely why I can’t reduce it to abstracting legal principles and commentary into dry ink on dead trees. I would rather talk about it on the ground with my classmates, in lively banter. I would rather write about it in my blog, where active surfers can reply can reply and debate. I want exclamation points in my discourse. Let’s call it the Dean Carale style of lawyering.

And finally, I am perfectly happy where I am right now. So why rock the boat?