The importance of being a lawyer if you’re a senator

If I were not a lawyer but I happened to become a senator, I would rather keep my mouth shut just like Senator-judge Lito Lapid. I would not have the gall to challenge the credentials of a senior agent of the National Bureau of Investigation. If I have nothing substantive to contribute, my greatest help is to invoke my right to remain silent, rather than highlight my audacious ignorance. That is what Senate President Win is doing, and I admire him for his restraint and good breeding.

Lawyers have greater responsibility but if they are senators, they should refrain from lawyering for the defense or for the prosecution. The best evidence that senators who are lawyers have distinct advantage over those who are not members of the Bar is the choice of the majority to elect senator Chiz Escudero as presiding officer of the impeachment court, even as the majority has been firm in electing non-lawyer, Win Gatchalian as Senate president.

Article VI, SECTION 3 of the 1987 Constitution provides: “No person shall be a Senator unless he is a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, and, on the day of the election, is at least thirty-five years of age, able to read and write, a registered voter, and a resident of the Philippines for not less than two years immediately preceding the day of the election.” There is no requirement to be a lawyer. We are allowing non-lawyers to become lawmakers. Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

If we look at the pages of our history, the greatest and most famous senators were lawyers, with very few exceptions. They include Manuel Quezon, Sergio Osmeña, Jose P. Laurel, Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino, Carlos Garcia, they were senators before they became presidents. Then we had the best parliamentarians like Jose Diokno, Jovito Salonga, Arturo Tolentino, Lorenzo Tañada, Claro M. Recto, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Tecla S. Ziga, Marcelo B. Fernan, Rene Saguisag, the Sotto brothers, Mariano Jesus Cuenco, Filemon and Vicente, Rene Espina, and Vicente Rama.

Of course, we have non-lawyers who excelled as senators, like Ninoy Aquino, Blas F. Ople, Juan Flavier, Serge Osmeña III, Ernesto Herrera, Sonny Osmeña, Leticia Ramos Shahani, Maria Kalaw Katigbak, Geronima Pecson who the first female senator, and Risa Hontiveros. Today, the non-lawyers who sit as members of the Senate include Win Gatchalian, Tito Sotto, Migz Zubiri, Ping Lacson, Loren Legarda, Bam Aquino, JV Ejercito, Bong Go, Imee Marcos, the Villar siblings, the Tulfo brothers, and such characters as Robin Padilla, Lito Lapid, and the detained Jinggoy Estrada and missing Bato dela Rosa.

The lawyers have distinct advantages, like Chiz Escudero, Kiko Pangilinan, the Cayetano siblings, and the arrested and detained Rodante Marcoleta. Impeachment is principally a lawyers' game. Only lawyers know such legal principles as admissible evidence, hearsay, fruits of the poisonous tree, the rule of evidence that are immaterial, impertinent and irrelevant. Only lawyers can make a ruling to sustain or overrule an objection. Only lawyers can determine what is the difference between proof beyond reasonable doubt and preponderance of evidence.

The defense and the pro-DDS senators are looking down at the spectacle of two men in the rostrum instead of only one. The audacious Padilla even went to the extent of making a sarcastic remark to the effect of asking why the majority elected a Senate president who needs a lawyer by her side, and why not elect Escudero instead as Senate president. Such audacity.

But then again, on second thought, it dawns on me that there should be at least more than two-thirds among the senators who should be members of the Bar. If their job is to make laws, then at the very least, more than half of them should be lawyers. Or at least a holder of a Juris Doctor or a Bachelor of Laws degree.

Otherwise, they can hear a stern admonition from famous constitutionalist Robinhood Padilla, erstwhile chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional amendments. Or they would be scolded by a brother from Ateneo and a sister from UP, who apparently claim superior knowledge in all this legalistic gobbledygook.