IBP’s fresh start

Coffee shops are abuzz these days with speculations that the issue concerning the national presidency of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines or IBP would soon be resolved. It will be recalled that the IBP, the biggest – and most influential – organization of lawyers in the country has just gone through one of the most tumultuous chapters in its history.

Our own coffee shop gang called our attention to the fact that the IBP, which has a vote on who the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will be, only has an interim or hold-over national president at this point. Noted labor lawyer Jose Anselmo Cadiz’s term as IBP national head should have expired middle of this year. However, the Supreme Court still has to rule on the validity of the election of his successor to the post, lawyer Jose Vicente Salazar, who is set to become the youngest president of the IBP ever.

Our fellow coffee shop kibitzers on the interesting unfolding of events at the IBP point out that the delay in the succession process was triggered by the ouster of erstwhile IBP executive vice president Leonard de Vera. De Vera, who many remember as the University of the Philippines law debating team partner of Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, is battling a disbarment case before the High Court.

There is now a motion before the Supreme Court to disbar De Vera filed by a leading Mindanao lawyer based on charges he faced before the California State Bar. The coffee shop gang has refused to comment on those charges noting that De Vera is a big name in the local legal community and was among those who volunteered to defend Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. on a move to impeach the latter.

By virtue of IBP laws, the barako gang continues, De Vera would have succeeded Cadiz. But the IBP board had earlier voted to remove him from the post and elect a successor EVP following accusations that De Vera subjected the Board to humiliation during the IBP national convention in Baguio City early this year.

Salazar was voted in his stead and therefore is poised to assume the IBP presidency upon validation of his election by the High Court.

The barako gang recalls that Cadiz and De Vera had long running disputes over issues which were reportedly often fiery and bordered on the divisive. Both are brilliant lawyers and speakers, our caffeine guzzlers say. The identical brilliance often made for deadlocks in the heated debate, they added.

Now it appears the legal community is looking forward to a PAX IBP, an era of relative internal harmony.

This is important, observers say, so the IBP can do exactly as they were exhorted by Chief Justice Davide himself during the recent reunion of the University of the Philippines Law School. "During troubled times, we must live to be exemplars of judicious, sober and rational conduct and serve as a stabilizing force in the country," Davide told lawyers present.

Judicious, sober and rational appear to be the adjectives to describe the next IBP president. Observers say the young Salazar is a contrast to the fiery character of Cadiz. While the hold-over IBP president is a brilliant debater, Salazar, they say, is a quiet consensus-builder who has the patience and the skill to listen to all parties.

In fact, Salazar is an emerging figure in the arbitration field – the alternative to expensive litigation. Arbitration is a process where opposing parties settle their differences outside of the trial court by looking at options and arriving at a win-win solution. Such appears to be the expertise of the young Salazar.

The anticipated assumption by Salazar of the IBP national presidency is expected to bring in the proverbial whiff of fresh air. He will be leading a relatively young IBP board that the legal community hopes would bring in reforms and steer the organization to its rightful role in these troubled times. The task could be done only if the IBP could cure once and for all the perennial divisiveness that has hounded the organization over the past few years.

If he assumes the post, Salazar will be the first non-UP Law graduate to be IBP president over the past few years. Salazar is an alumnus of the Ateneo Law School although he earlier finished an engineering course in the State University. Our sources say he is a product of the Philippine Science High School and therefore possesses an activist spirit despite the external calmness of his disposition.

The coffee shop gang gathered that Salazar is a senior partner in a law office he co-founded with other equally young lawyers, including the son of Iloilo solon Arthur Defensor Sr.

If the air of optimism is pervasive in the legal community regarding the settlement of the leadership issue, it could be because sources say Cadiz himself has sent the High Court a petition to resolve with urgency the issue on the election of Salazar as IBP EVP and successor to the highest IBP post. Cadiz, observers noted, appears determined to have the issue laid to rest so the IBP can have fresh start.

The Cadiz petition, observers add, is expected to spur the speedy resolution of the issue. With that leadership question resolved, Cadiz will leave an important legacy to the IBP and would have ushered in what the coffee shop club now calls PAX IBP.

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