I'm a Frustrated Lawyer

The company I work for was commissioned to design the structure as well as interiors of some of the new courthouses planned to be built by the country's Judiciary. In order to familiarize ourselves with what the space planning requirements of the courts are, we held a site tour of current facilities this morning.

We visited the Manila Regional Trial Court at the upper levels of the Manila City Hall. To say that the condition of the courthouses was apalling was to me the biggest understatement of the year! And we are talking here of the MTC of the premier city of the country!!! I'm hard pressed to describe the squalid state of our judiciary.

The rooms were all cramped and dingy. The benches were falling off, the wall paint looks dirty. The clerk's office was just as bad. Reams and reams of documents were stacked to overflowing along the corridors (yes!! legal documents just lying on the corridors for lack of storage space) One court, the IPR court was half buried in documents (from all those illegal dvd cases i would imagine).

The worst part was when we entered a courtroom with live deliberations going on. We saw our judiciary in action. And boy what action!! One dumb lawyer was questioning an affidavit of a policeman who arrested his client (the plaintiff). The lawyer de campanilla (who was wearing a suit inside the stifling hot and unventilated courtroom) questioned the validity of the policeman's affidavit of apprehension questioning about the statement "subscribed and sworn to before me" of the notary public. Was he trying to question a notary's legality??? Should congress rewrite the law??? How stupid can one get? (am i in danger of contempt by publishing these?)

Anyway, the best part of the day was when we toured the plenary session hall of the Supreme Court in the afternoon. As I entered the chamber, I got the feeling that I was on hallowed ground. I was in awe of the grandeur of the place. At that point in time, for a split second I wanted to be a lawyer and I wanted to be presenting oral arguments to the highest court in the land; the final arbiter of justice; the final say, so to speak.