“I hav a nu hero.” “Cno?” “Si Fariñas.” That was the climax to a running text exchange between my friend and me during the last two days of the “Paglilitis” (impeachment trial). Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas stole the show and drew the only smile I saw on the lips of the masterly presiding officer, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile.
Oh, yes, we got educated and miseducated during the trial, from Latinisms to legal terms and phrases to legal procedures, enough for a slim beginner’s legal dictionary.
We found that lawyers are the most literal creatures on earth, woefully limited to denotation and completely unaware of connotation, or in absolute denial of its existence. They have no choice, I’m told.
On the witness stand you have to be the dumbest of the dumb and the meekest of the meek. You’re limited to “yes” or “no,” no more, no less, if lawyer so demands. You can’t explain; you can’t reason out (ask Kim Henares). You can’t narrate (unless you’re Renato Corona). You can’t raise your voice (unless you’re Miriam Santiago). And never cover your ears (ask Vitaliano Aguirre). You can be cut down and feel like minced meat (ask Harvey Keh).
From “Joke-Joke-Joke”—If you cut a piece of meat, how many pieces do you have? Two. If you cut the two, how many now? Four. If you cut the four, how many? Eight. If you cut the eight, how many? Sixteen. If you cut the 16, how many? Thirty-two. If you cut the 32, how many? Giniling na ho ’yan (That’s ground meat already).
A trial lawyer must have nerves of steel to right a wrong—or wrong a right, so to speak. “Ensnare” is a core word; it’s either you or your opponent.
Now I understand why a lawyer-friend of ours who is a quintessential gentleman has chosen not to be a trial lawyer. In court he has to be ruthless, a master of double-speak, a quibbler who can split every strand of hair left on his opponent’s head.
Besides the vocabulary lessons, the histrionics and infotainment, there were stretches on the road leading to bitter lessons about law. Here was an object lesson demonstrating the dictum that shocked me when I first heard it: “The courts do not always serve justice; they serve the law”—the letter of the law, Virginia, not always the spirit. Sorry na lang if the law is a bad law, if the law is legal but not ethical, if the law is being wrung dry by technicalities and legalities. The crafty lawyer can stretch procedure and maim justice—and there goes another dictum: “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
To whom would we, innocents, reduced to withering degrees of confusion and frustration, go?
But there were breaths of fresh air; there were shafts of light. First was the internal revenue commissioner, Kim Henares, unfazed and cool in the heat of cross-examination. Then there was the feisty Ombudsman, Conchita Carpio Morales, whose PowerPoint presentation was the decisive tipping point. Take note that they are women, repudiation to that lawyer who offered his forgettable balls.
Enter Congressman Fariñas, the final flourish and coup de grace. What boldness, what irreverence, what precision, to use “palusot” as the word of the hour. Can you imagine using such a colorful street word in the august chambers of a trial bristling with “your honor (how did Justice Serafin Cuevas say it?),” “thank you,” “sorry,” and “with your permission” (kulang na lang ang “may I go out”)?
What did Fariñas dare? He dared outmaneuver the legalese that had controlled the trial until then, called a spade a spade, talked common sense, said everything the witnesses must have wanted to say but couldn’t, silenced by technicalities at every turn. He set free what the common man thought and said it for him.
And what was he able to say that legalese had blocked? He was able to say how ridiculous (an impossible tack in court) were the pa-drama of Corona and his tales: how Corona must have been buying dollars since Grade 4, why in heaven’s name he “commingled” his daughter’s and his wife’s family’s funds in his name, etc. Fariñas joined Ombudsman Morales in dropping the putative “lying” and “liar” which we all suspected but couldn’t say and which the May 30 Inquirer editorial stated.
The defense took pathetic pains to say Corona was not guilty of corruption, ill-gotten and hidden wealth, betrayal of public trust, etc., but “only” of inaccuracies in his statements of assets, liabilities and net worth, and “in good faith” at that—when, in one’s guts, who did not strongly suspect that this “unimpeachable” SALN smacked precisely of those high crimes? Fariñas showed “letter”-driven lawyers that there is such a word as “obvious.” All these he was able to communicate.
It was as if he was saying, “Sino ba naman ang maniniwalang wala silang katulong (Who would believe that they had no maid)?!”
In the telenovela “100 Days to Heaven,” the lead child kept asking the other characters, “Kuha mo (Get it)?” Yes, Congressman Fariñas, “kuha namin.”
Asuncion David Maramba is a retired professor, book editor and occasional journalist. Comments to marda_ph @yahoo.com, fax 8284454.
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