Book hails lawyer’s landmark case

Friday, December 9, 2011

A NEW book on the Supreme Court, the fifth from the author who earlier looked into how justices get appointed and if this affected the way they voted on issues involving the appointing power, shows how a case filed by a Cebu-based lawyer helped enshrine “the right to know.”

The book launching for Marites Vitug’s “Our Rights, Our Voices: Landmark Cases in the Supreme Court” turned into an impromptu memorial of sorts for the late Valentin “Billy” Legaspi, with lawyers Earl Bonachita and Democrito Barcenas remembering their fellow one-time Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Cebu City Chapter president.

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“Legaspi began his law practice in the 50s in Cebu, setting up a three-lawyer office that was small yet gave him pride,” said Bonachita, the incumbent IBP chapter president. Legaspi worked on causes rather than cases, resulting in him getting “paid next to nothing.”

Legaspi “held on to his scruples” and was never known to have approached judges, quite a few having been his friends, to get any advantage for favor, Bonachita said.

Barcenas called Legaspi a good friend. He was the third IBP Cebu City chapter president, following lawyer-turned-congressman Pablo Garcia and the late Marcelo Fernan. Legaspi died in October 2009.

But the best memorial for the late lawyer comes from a 10-page chapter on him and a 1985 case he filed in the book that Vitug, editor of Newsbreak, co-wrote with prize-winning novelist Criselda Yabes.

The case involved a simple inquiry on the civil-service eligibility of two people, Julian Sibonghanoy and Mariano Agas, both employees of the City Health Office. They claimed they got their jobs because they passed the exam for sanitary inspectors.

Exam results

Legaspi wrote the Civil Service Commission for information regarding the results of the supposed examination but was declined, saying he needed a court order.

Unsatisfied, Legaspi wrote the CSC again but received no reply.

He finally wrote the CSC chairperson at that time and insisted that “the closing of the records of successful examinees was not in accord with the Constitution” and “contrary to the objectives of the career public service since apparently it shielded
fakers and falsifiers.”

The CSC, in reply, sent him a copy of a 1972 memorandum that said government officers were “entitled to the privacy of their records” and that, as such, the CSC was “duty-bound to safeguard them… to prevent possible intrusion.”

Legaspi went to the Supreme Court, arguing he had the “right to be informed.” In a subsequent pleading, he wrote: “The right of the people is recognized. Petitioner is embraced within such right as one of the people (and) entitled to access.”

Unanimous decision

In 1987, the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, ordered the CSC to open its “register of eligibles” and to confirm or deny the civil service eligibility of the two persons Legaspi was inquiring about.

The ruling, Vitug and Yabes said in the book, was penned by then Justice Irene Cortes who had just been appointed by then president Corazon Aquino.

Justice Cortes, they added, is now best remembered for the decision that established the constitutional right of the people to information on matters that affect the public and that this right is self-executing and without need for implementing legislation.

The authors noted that Nepomuceno Malaluan, a lawyer and leading right-to-know advocate, often points to Legaspi vs. CSC as the landmark case in the field.