Judge Meinrado Paredes was an outstanding member of the Bench. He was fair, straight and level-headed. He was not unreasonably strict, was not given to tantrums, and did not scold or insult or lecture lawyers.
Menmen would have turned 80 in January next year. I was looking forward to the party that Jane was planning for him (I was confident I’d get invited because it was I she asked to reserve the venue). We could have talked about old times when boys wore cowboy boots and bell bottoms (which we wore to our oath-taking) and much later, when he was judge and I lost most of my cases in his court.
We would also have talked about the Duterte impeachment trial, which should already have been over and done with by then, and naturally, lawyers and their bar examination ratings.
Menmen and I were admitted to the bar in 1975 along with 683 other passers of the 1974 bar examinations. The passing rate was 35.02 percent, a figure that would have been lesser had the Supreme Court not lowered the passing grade from 75 percent to 70 percent.
As far as I can remember, no one from that batch had gloated that his or her grade was higher than 70 percent, not even Arturo Brion, who scored 91.65 percent to place first.
In fairness to Vice President Sara Duterte, it was not she who declared in her trial that she passed the bar on her first attempt and that her rating was 80 percent which was higher than most of the lawyers in the room. It was her lawyer who did.
When a lawyer does that, the client has reason to worry. The assertion smells of desperation. What relevance does a better passing average in the bar examinations have to one’s guilt or innocence?
The defense that the accused in a case for theft couldn’t have committed the crime because he is rich wouldn’t hold in court but it is at least more believable than claiming that the vice president couldn’t have threatened the president with harm because she passed the bar exams on her first attempt and with flying colors yet.
Come on guys, you’re better than that, Menmen would have said and I would have agreed.
There would be no party, no conversation, however, as death has claimed Menmen. See you in the next life, my friend, where hopefully our roles would be re-arranged so that I would be the judge, and you the trial lawyer. That would be the day.