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Thursday, March 30, 2006
Seares: ‘Abogado ka, Torni?’
By Pachico A. Seares
News Sense
The line, more of friendly banter than insult, pokes at a lawyer's weakness in law or logic. It teases inability to think and talk like a lawyer (which often happens, lawyer-phobes swear).
It is not meant to assail credentials: whether one went to law school, passed the bar, signed the roll of attorneys, and paid IBP dues.
"Are you a lawyer, Atty.?"
That was asked this week, after NBI arrested four persons who took the role of lawyers without going through school and bar, made a living out of lawyering, and exulted in being addressed Torni. Reality took the joke seriously.
Competition
The sky fell---on the community of lawyers.
A stunned Cebu City IBP president Alex Tolentino declared the situation serious. The four "lawyers" had been at it for many years: how many sacred documents they must have sullied with untrained and unlicensed hands and minds.
Unlike Mayor Tomas Osmeńa, who thinks lawyers coddle drug suspects because the attorneys fear income cuts, I don't believe Alex and his ilk are worried about or threatened by the competition.
Competition had a sidewalk, or at most a hole-in-the-wall, for an office. They didn't appear in court, strutting in coat or barong.
Worse, when caught, they didn't protest innocence and spew out the law or some Latin invective to rattle arresting officers.
Instead, they confessed.
So unlawyerly. So embarrassing.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (March 30, 2006 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
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