BEHIND EVERY PERSON IS A GREAT STORY

The long and Winding Road

Events started when I decided to take another route from the Queen city of the south, away from the friends I have learned to love to land where I have never stepped into, the City of Friendship. The place was then so new to me, but I do not have uncertainty that I am meant to be here. And there’s a reason for everything that will come into my life.

After a few months of getting to know the new surroundings I took my entrance exam at LDCU and hopefully passed it. I enrolled in the college few days after passing said exam. The first few months at law school were all so tiring and routinary that most of the time at the library, to our classroom and home and study again.

A course that change my course of life

During the first semester I often heard some law students who joined a particular group that is so unfamiliar to my hearing. And one friend of mine made mention on her various engagements and experiences during the summer vacation that is so unusual to students like us, for others would just love to go home and intertwined their summer by staying at home or go on tour to visit places. But the stories she told me, awakened something down under me to try and be a part of the group to where she belongs.

It was only during the second semester that I got hold and witness how the group worked and indulge themselves to an activity that catches my attention. The activity was all about “MARGINALIZATION OF WOMEN IN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM” that was held during our law day. I was able to get to know clearer and better the reason for being of the group who formally introduced themselves as CALL (Center for Alternative Lawyering of Liceo) a partner of certain NGO I hardly know.

After the said activity some members of the group invited some of my classmates and I to join them and gave us a piece of paper marked as “APPLICATION FORM”. At first I was hesitant for such word depict an idea that there is a very big task at stake plus the part wherein I am told to answer my concept of Alternative Lawyering, which I find it hard to answer for I am not familiar of such word. But thankfully, I was able to give my own first definition of what it means for a “BAGITO” like me. But even before they ask me to join, deep inside me, I am determined to take the path for such quest of life.

The walk of life

As I submit my application form I could feel the tingling sensation inside my brain for I know I am about to take another route. The day started when a member of the group text me to join them and explained to me what is going to happen. So I barged in without hesitation thus bringing all my stuffs in a very big traveling bag bigger in size than me for a one-week activity. There in the BOS that I met law students who are as eager as I am to learn and hear what Alternative Lawyering is all about. Many are the things that happened that made me see life in a way I could never imagined existed. For during my routinary life in the college I was dreaming of a life where I could see myself wearing high-heeled shoes and working in an office wearing a formal yet frigid outfit just to fit into the world where I thought is the only path I could have. (This is my reflection during the BOS)

And it was during the immersion that I feel the intensity of eradicating my usual concept on what legal profession is, for I realized that there are things that the academe or the school failed to teach me, that is the value and empowering the people you lend your services to as one value and empower oneself.

The Summer Experience

Being one of the applicants for CALL, we had to be separated and exposed to different sectors which members of ALG is focusing on… I was then exposed to Mining and IP sectors where I was able to witness how mining company works and how it affects the community in general. I was made to believe that laws are just and equitable but it is otherwise. And with regard to IP issues, where they were taught on how to stand for their own right by using the law as their tool. And not only that, such assignment is worth having for it taught me how to deal with different kind of people. Sometimes, I get carried away seeing them being displaced and evacuated for certain reasons they do not understand with inaction on their part. Such a summer experience is a heartbreaking and inspiring one for it made me more convinced that there is something inside of me to give.

After summer what?

Being part of the group, my engagement with ALG work still continues for the experience I had is just but a “sample” of the many events of life coming my way.

The journey only begins

Now as I continue to live my life being a member of CALL, everyday of it is a lesson learned. Being mold to continue the legacy that my mentors imparted to me is a good start of being one with the people in their fight for justice. And not only that, I became deeply involved with ALG work by becoming a part of an institution that do not only teach me to live life to the fullest with purpose but also teaches me to give the technology or the learning’s that law schools had taught me in order to empower the people especially the marginalized sectors, and I thank BALAOD for it widened my horizon to the traditional belief of what lawyering is all about. I could see the road clearly as I travel to life with headstrong conviction that no matter life may take I will bring this important event of my life, that no one can steal this away from me for it is mine in the making and I’ll bring it with me in my grave. But as of today, the journey for life has just begun with BALAOD and ALG as a whole

Published (Touching Lives. ICCO. 2005 )