The Bangus Ultimatum

When I was a law freshman (1L), I’d take the Supreme Court pronouncements in Criminal Law cases like gospel. Nevermind the background in empirical research. If the SC says that positive identification by an eyewitness is paramount and that a barrio lass crying rape can’t possibly lie, then who was I to argue?

I’m taking Evidence this Summer. Somehow, the High Tribunal’s hokey psychology and laughable stereotypes don’t buy it for me. Blame it on the CSI Effect. I expect better forensics and far more rigorous arguments to surmount the presumption of innocence. I’m reading the cases right now. Convictions based on lone witnesses . No object evidence to speak of. Â IÂ and my classmates can’t help but think that things have gone horribly horribly wrong.

I’m hoping that newer batches of lawyers (future judges and justices), would expect more and think better. Courts have to be dragged, kicking and screaming if need be, into the 21st Century.

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(Reprinted from The Man-Blog)

If there should be any reason why I like the Star Wars prequels, it’s probably because of the parallel “political” aspects of its storyline. As compelling as the tale of Anakin’s fall to the dark side may be, there is something especially tragic when an entire galaxy-spanning civilization slips from democracy to tyranny. It is a seduction all the more sweeter, and a loss far more devastating.

The lowdown (based on the movies, novels, and comic-books) I snarfed from a Wikipedia article:

Traditionally, the Chancellor could only serve two four-year terms, but Palpatine stayed in office much longer, due to the prolonged Separatist Crisis.

The crisis occurred when several of the Republic’s member Star Systems and organizations united in order to separate from the Republic. This unified organization became known as the Confederacy of Independent Systems. Tensions between the Republic and the Separatists eventually escalated into all-out war, and the conflicts that would later be known as the “Clone Wars” began (chronicled in Attack of the Clones).

The Senate granted Palpatine emergency powers to deal with the Separatist Confederacy in a motion introduced by Representative Jar Jar Binks. Palpatine’s first move, widely supported at the time, was to create a vast army of clone warriors to serve as the Republic’s fighting force against the Confederacy.

In the ensuing years, the Senate increasingly ceded its power to Palpatine, who became the war’s political Commander-in-Chief. Such actions were justified in the name of security, and eventually Palpatine did not need the approval of the Senate for many of his actions. Since the chancellor held a vast majority of supporters in Senate, this was considered a perfectly reasonable way to increase the wartime government’s efficiency.

…
At the conclusion of the Clone Wars, Palpatine addressed the Senate. First he related the story of the unsuccessful “assassination attempt” by the Jedi, and declared the Order to be enemies of the Republic. Then he announced that the Galactic Republic would become a Galactic Empire so strong as to never be threatened by outside forces again. The Chancellor, who by this time had been grotesquely disfigured (he claimed this was from the Jedi assassination attempt), proclaimed himself to be the first Emperor of the galaxy. Deluded by Palpatine’s charisma and skill (and perhaps also by his considerable Dark Side power), the majority of the Senate cheered him on loudly in approval, which provoked one of Senator Padmé Amidala’s most memorable lines: “So this is how liberty dies: with thunderous applause.” After so many millennia, the Galactic Republic had ceased to exist.

At the center of it all, of course, is Senator/Chancellor/Emperor Palpatine, the consummate politician, carefully pulling the right strings and playing both sides, all the while maintaining a veneer of integrity and compassion. Besides being such a devious sonofabitch, however, he had another advantage: War changed the galaxy’s socio-political environment (just as it had, according to the novels, darkened The Force itself.) People (and their representatives in the Senate) became more and more willing to surrender their rights in exchange for security (or the illussion thereof). All power eventually became concentrated in The Emperor, who Cannot Be Wrong, and can’t be held accountable to anyone. Of course, most of us know where that arrangement led to: homicidal maniacs blowing up a planet to smithereens without so much as a half-assed inquiry.

That is why I feel very very very very VERY concerned at all this talk of term extensions and more government power. Limited terms and limited powers ensure ultimate accountability to the people, that the feedback process that makes democracy fresh and viable remains operative. The promise of more prosperity, security (and stronger republics) in exchange for longer stays in office (and more expansive powers) is truly alluring, an easy way, but a slippery slope to the Dark Side. The true burden of a free people is vigilance, and we must never be remiss on our duties.

Participated in Malcolm Madness yet again as an impersonator. I’m not going to give you the details, but it involves me wearing a blouse and black stockings, spoofing a lady professor (with parts of Darth Vader, Sauron, and Gollum). I didn’t attack her personality, but I did question her pedagogical methods. Rote memorization is certainly a useful trick, but it’s useful only for an extremely narrow context (TheSnappyLitigator Pattern), and often the costs involved in getting to that place is staggering. I look back at the mindless hours I’ve spent memorizing provisions, thinking just how much profitable the time would have been reading and comparing annotations, law journal articles, and just discussing finer points with my smart and capable classmates. Blind subservience to the text of the rules alone is dangerous - the unwarranted focus may give one the notion that there could only be one possible rule, one possible solution. Azh nazg durbatulûk, azh nazg gimbatul, azh nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.

Found out this morning that my impersonation got first prize. Cool! My first ever prize in law school is for a comedy sketch! I see a fruitful career as a litigator. Or maybe a Congressman.

Well, just law school, actually. But we do have our share of witchcraft and wizardry. We have lingering ghosts and our share of dragons and dementors. Dark and difficult times lie ahead for me and my blockmates.

I’m currently reading and re-reading Duncan Kennedy’s “How Law Schools Fail”, which, unfortunately, doesn’t show up in Google. It’s an article in the Yale Law Review first published in 1970, describing the “malaise” of hostility, myopia, and apathy that polluted Yale Law back then. I might as well be reading about the UP College of Law in 2005: Professors and their arsenal of sadism, their unjustified disdain of subjects outside law. Students dividing into extremes of buying into the system or just settling into stasis. I hope to discuss the article further soon, if only to hold a mirror against the past three years of studying law school, and how it changed (or warped) me so.

I’m also a teacher now, in the UP CMC. I hope that I’ll never have to resort to dominance, to paternalism,to ridicule, to “icy indifference” to teach my lessons. I hope I never forget what the rule-readers and the bureaucrats fail to understand: that beyond the arbitrary walls and narrow categories they cling to, the wings of a thousand butterflies are beating, seeding the atmosphere with storms; that magic can still happen; that the human voice can never really be stilled.

Still not sure if I’ll pass Taxation 1, but while reviewing for the subject a few weeks back I had perverse pleasure of “mapping” the provisions on income taxation into a flowchart thingie. I know Sir JJ thinks it’s bullshit, but I still imagine a lot of my law subjects as running code. Tax Law just describes this huge system thats exists to process input (your hard-earned money) and converts it into pork (sorry). Negotiable Instruments Law doesn’t describe a single system (that’s why I had trouble charting it linearly), instead it describes a stack of protocols for transfering information (that’s what a check is, in the end- a vehicle for data). Succession, however, is hard. In computer programming, objects are supposed to expire from the memory space, and each programming language has rules that determine how new objects take over resources in an orderly fashion. It’s a hard job doing it manually, that’s why modern web-oriented platforms (Java, .NET) handle all the nitty-gritty memory management automatically nowadays.

(NOTE: I may have to update this once the E-VAT law becomes effective. New rates, and new tax treatment for general professional partnerships)

Okay. So during the last semester my blockmates and I had sort of an inside joke. It started out with a question on a yahoogroup (relating to, um…self-help), which people answered in a legally-sounding fashion. Then that was followed with a couple of relationship-related call-for-helps in the logbook that we answered as if they were requests for legal advice. From all that emerged Ask Scaebolah!, a column in the Law Student Government Bulletin that promises to give Legal Solutions to Life’s Real Problems.

I’m proud of how it turned out. The response was way beyond my anticipation. Right now I’m way behind answering questions and requests for advice. I’m also conveniently cut off from the Law Library and its collection of legal curiosities (including a collection from Mucius Quintus Scaevola himself/themselves). So maybe all I could do during the sembreak is to respond with mini-replies to the easier questions. Watch out for them soon.

Other than watching movies I missed last semester, playing games until my eyes drop out (not really, as no game as of late’s managed to break through my been-there-done-that-ness), and sleeping in the afternoon (just because I can), the agenda for the semestral break:

* Do some planning/conspiring over Creative Commons Philippines
* Regular Blogging for iBlog II
* Open Source/Open Standards Thingie (best I don’t reveal anything too much about it yet)
* Write a couple of Ask Scaebolah columns
* Prepare for my classes in MassComm (I’m teaching next semester! I pity the fools who’ll be under my tutelage)