Make no mistake, justice is still a privilege in this country

Micah Stefan Dagaerag

Honest Engagements

Justice is a right. But the administration thereof is too often buffeted into the island of
privilege. There are, many reasons for this, of course, but for the next six hundred words,
Id just like to focus on two in particular: the deliberate limiting of lawyers to a relative few
of the population, and the neglect of major universities to invest in producing better
trained police officers.

The road towards becoming a lawyer is too hard in the Philippines. The average number of
Bar passers remains in the 20-30% range of all takers. There are eight subjects to cover,
while in other countries bar candidates just take the subjects corresponding to their
particular specialization. Thats on top of at least four years of law school, and at least four
more years of undergraduate education. In other countries, high school students can
actually go straight to pursue a law degree.

Moreover, prospect law students must now take and pass the PhiLSAT before they may
enroll in law school, wherein such exam is administered only at select major cities in the
Philippines. This means that enrolment in law schools this year will be even lower, barring
(no pun intended) entry to anyone who decides to enter law school just before school
starts, which actually adds up to a good number.

The design seems to be to keep the number of lawyers intentionally low, which makes legal
assistance and advice more expensive and inaccessible. Imagine if lawyers were as
common as teachers or bankers. Fees for legal services would eventually be more
competitive, and the rule of law would be a tangible every-day experience for the common
human being, rather than some obscure, intimidating, and costly event that most would
prefer to avoid.
Justice, of course, is not just in the hands of lawyers. There are much more policemen and
policewomen. This brings me to something that the Philippine Daily Inquirer website
published last June 2016, regarding the latest ranking of the best universities of Asia by
Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a British educational company whose school rankings are
among the most influential in the world.

The list of top 400 Asian universities included eight from the Philippines: University of the
Philippines Diliman, Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, University of
Santo Tomas, Silliman University, Xavier University, Ateneo de Davao University, and
University of San Carlos. Curiously, none of these places, offer criminology or any other
related course.

Criminology seems to be neglected by the nations best academic institutions, when it has
to do with providing professionally competent and morally upright graduates who execute
the governments duties of crime prevention, detection and investigation, among others.
One consequence of this is that criminology is not a discipline that is constantly in the
forefront of the minds of those in the highest centers of learning and knowledge. How
much, then, can we reasonably expect in terms of criminological research and development
for the Philippines? And yet the nations top schools and universities are usually the
strongest voices of protest against violence, crime, and injustice.

One would think that if these centers of academic excellence could produce many
prestigious lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers, business executives, politicians, and
priests, they could have also thought about contributing reliable police officers to society.
Law enforcement begins, not with lawyers, but with the police. That is why I find it ironic,
unfortunate, and concerning when big universities and schools can go hard and critical of
the Philippine justice system, without contributing good enforcers thereto.

We hope for a day in the Philippines when the line between justice as a right and as a
privilege will not be as clear and as thick. But it is not yet this day: not when lawyers in and
out of government enjoy the exclusivity a wee bit too much, and not when the academic
elites remain distant in law enforcement.