The Young Lawyers Association of Cebu (YLAC) will turn 47 in December. I know because I was one of the fewer than 20 Cebu-based practitioners who organized it in 1979. We had no lofty dreams when we created YLAC; it was born out of a need for comfort and encouragement that only the company of fellow suffering, bullied and inexperienced colleagues from Bar ‘73 and Bar ‘74 — and beer — can provide.
More than half of the pioneers have since crossed the Great Divide. By Lando Lim’s reckoning, there are at most only eight of us left. YLAC has outlived most of us. And, as I always remind recruits who are required to pay us a visit in order to be considered for membership, it has found its meaning along the way.
I am grateful to our younger colleagues for preserving our legacy. Many leaders have taken turns at the helm since Pepe Quijano and his board were sworn in by Judge Peary Aleonar in 1979. Except for that brief and regrettable period when YLAC wobbled, they have acquitted themselves admirably, including the present set of officers led by president Chris Arenajo.
Being an organization of lawyers, it is inevitable that many of the members would eventually become politicians. YLAC has produced congressmen, a governor, vice governors, board members, mayors, vice mayors and councilors.
The late Cebu Gov. Tingting dela Serna was a YLAC member. Former Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama once served as YLAC president. The late Ading Seno, who once served as vice mayor of Mandaue City, was also one of us.
Even those who did not seek office actively participated in the elections as counsel for political parties or individual candidates. And yet while many of its members became immersed in politics, the organization itself has steadfastly remained non-partisan.
That is why I nearly fell off my chair when I read a social media post attributed to DDS lawyer Levi Baligod claiming that at least 200 YLAC members were going to Manila to presumably help him and the cause of his clients.
Baligod, it must be noted, is counsel to the so-called 18 Marines who have famously claimed to have delivered bribe money in “maletas” to President Marcos, senators, congressmen and even judges of the International Criminal Court. The ex-soldiers had damaged their own credibility, however, by rearranging their narrative a number of times.
Lawyers, even those who belong to the non-partisan YLAC, are free to choose their clients and their causes but as the association pointed out in its official statement yesterday, such actions are personal and not of the Club.
I call upon the many friends of Baligod in YLAC to come out and echo that clarification. That’s the least that they could do to preserve the group’s integrity and reputation.