Friday, May 23, 2008 Malilong: Fear should not control our advocacy By Frank Malilong The Other Side
DICK Sison’s murder could have only been work-related.
The fallen lawyer was a warrior who gave his opponents no quarters and asked for none. His passion for his craft might have rubbed some people the wrong way.
I don’t mean his fellow lawyers. Count us out. We oftentimes trade insults in our pleadings or oral arguments but we remain friends with everyone.
Dick’s demeanor inside the courtroom didn’t qualify him for the title, Mr. Congeniality. He was not above making life miserable for the opposing counsel if he could but that was all there was to it. Dick had a soft heart that can easily forgive and forget.
At one time, for example, when Dick and I were younger lawyers, our exchange became so heated I called him obese after he made fun of my Masbate accent. The amused judge (the late Valeriano Tomol Jr.) ordered the session adjourned, saying that we were obviously hungry because we were losing our temper.
We shook hands and laughed on our way out, most probably to the chagrin of our respective clients.
While most clients understand that the lawyers are just doing a job, there are some who think that we are the enemy, sometimes even the devil incarnate.
I have already written here about that incident in a case for homicide before Cebu Regional Trial Court Judge Meinrado Paredes many years ago. We were waiting for the case to be called when I noticed the judge looking at something behind me. He was trying to suppress a smile.
When I turned my back, I saw an old lady with eyes closed and her arms stretched above my head. I asked her what she was doing and she answered that she was praying that the Holy Spirit would embrace and guide me. I told her thank you but please pray over your own lawyer.
I’m sure most lawyers would rather that the other side pray for them than hire someone to kill them. The sad fact, however, is that there are some litigants who so hate their opponents they want them and their lawyer dead.
What I am saying is that the danger of being physically harmed is part of the lawyer’s territory, our work being mostly adversarial. Many lawyers have been killed before Dick. The threat to our safety has always been there, only that we are more conscious of it now because the latest incident struck closer to home.
What can lawyers do? Appeal to our client’s opponents that we are only messengers, not enemies even if most of the time we deliver our messages in a forceful, and sometimes obnoxious manner?
Or tell our clients that since we stand at equal risk with them to threats from their opponents, we should be paid for more so we can buy insurance to dampen the impact of our loss to our loved ones?
The truth is that there isn’t really much that we can do. We cannot even ask to be given guns since arming ourselves is not a guarantee against attack, although it may minimize the chance of its occurrence. Dick was a member of a gun club and from what I hear was good marksman. Yet, the suddenness of the attack precluded him from drawing his gun, if he was carrying one at that time, and defending himself.
It is a natural reaction to be afraid. Point to me a legal practitioner who says that he isn’t at all affected by the Sison killing and I will point to you a liar. But we can not allow our fears to control our advocacy or, for that matter, our lives.
If you live every minute in fear that you could die anytime, you’re as good as, or even better off, dead.
