Courtroom Shooting and A Search for Truth

May 19, 2009

It was a tense day in court. Several cases were to be heard that day and the courtroom was full. A known NPA leader was to be tried and outside the courtroom, more than a dozen military escorts in uniform were loitering. They were all carrying with them their armalites, as if ready to do battle. The people awaiting for their cases to be called were silent, intimidated by the presence of these armed men. Cases after cases were called, tension was building up as litigants come and go from the witness stand. When the case of the NPA leader was called, all were silent. The old prosecutor, nervous of the unwanted attention, wanted to ask that the public be excluded from the courtroom. He stood up and said: “Your Honor, may I ask for the execution (exclusion) of the public?”. Surprised, the defense lawyer smiled, threw up his hands and said “Ay wag naman ganyan judge”

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The case was called in court. The witness, a woman who looks to be in her sixties, was called to the witness stand. After she swore to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, the court interpreter asked her regarding her personal circumstances. When the witness’ age was asked, she replied, “35″.

Surprised, the interpreter said, “Tiya naman, I am already 40 years old and you look older than me and yet you want us to believe that you are in your 30s”. 

Witness: “O sige, 48″

Interpreter: “Sus man tiya“

Witness: “Sige na nga, 55″.

Interpreter: “I don’t believe you. You want us to believe that you are even younger than the judge?”

At this point, the entire courtroom was already laughing. The judge interfered and asked the witness if she was born before World War II and how old she was by then and so on. They were able to deduce that the witness’ age was about 65- older than the judge who was 61 then. The witness was finally able to testify. However, her credibility at that point was already in question.

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Note: The above stories really happened.

 

How To Take The Bar Exams: The Review

May 14, 2009

  photo: www.childrenbookblogs.com

Choose carefully the books you are going to use during the review. You only have a limited time to go over them so make it count. Me, I chose only one reviewer per subject. I stuck with that and the codal during the first and the second reading. I read those books same time as the codal. One eye at the book and the other at the codal. Mweheheh.

 

During the second reading, I just skimmed thru my reviewers and relied more on the codal. I’m poor at memorizing so I don’t. I just try to understand how the law would work given a situation. I visualized. What I memorized were catch all provisions/concepts like “taxation is the lifeblood of the nation” or Art. 19 of the Civil Code.

 

The question is, when do you find time to read the review materials you are flooded with? See, the ones that earn the most during review are not the reviewers or the review school. but the photocopy operators. Everyday, rumors come out that the examiner is going to be Justice X or Professor Y and he has a book and these are his decisions or favorite exam questions. And people will just rush and photocopy these materials. You thus end up with a stack of review materials taller than you. What does one do with these materials? Read it. It may contain useful information. However, (emphasis on this point) your priority should be the codal and the reviewer. These materials should only be supplementary, something to read when you have run out of things to read or when you are tiered of reading your books. Sift thru these materials, take what is important. Remember that most of these materials are made by law students and hence, not so high on the reliability scale.

 

When we were doing the bar ops thing in our senior year, one professor made us go thru the previous bar exam questions and take notes on the questions asked and tally them. It turns out that some legal provisions have been cropping up in the bar exams almost every year and will likely keep on appearing.

 

Now, I may have been giving the impression that I did nothing in the review but study. The impression is WRONG! I also made time to shower and to eat. Seriously, during the review, I wake up at 6 in the morning, shower and eat breakfast and by 8 am, I am already on my desk, reading. I stop to take lunch, and since I don’t take naps, read again till 5pm. At 5 pm, we hear mass, have dinner. After dinner, we play tong-its. After dinner, I shower again (to freshen up my brain and my body) and read again til 10 in the evening. On Thursdays, we watch Ally Macbeal before studying again. Day in and day out, it’s like this. On Sundays, we take a break, hear mass, do the laundry, watch movies or just hung out with friends and catch up on gossip. We do anything except study. If we didn’t take a break, baka we would find ourselves playing patintero on the highway.

 

With that schedule, did I ever attend review classes which my parents paid for for me to attend? Hardly. I only attended the ones I felt I should be attending. I didn’t want to waste my time listening to some guy lecturing on topics I can comprehend by reading the codal and my reviewer. There’s this reviewer who would do nothing but tell jokes during review classes. When he is tired of telling jokes, he lectures by reading from his book. With all due respect, if I wanted to spend money and listen to jokes, I would have gone to Punchline or similar places.

 

Now, with your study hours, it really depends if you are a morning or a night person. If you feel you can study more at night time, go ahead. However, come August, you have to start changing your sleep habits so that you will be alert in the daytime on September. You wouldn’t want to be sluggish and sleepy while taking the bar, would you?

 

This early, start practicing your handwriting. It should be neat and easy to read. Not too tiny, not too large.

 

One important thing to remember: know when to give yourself a break. When you start hating your books, go out and take a long walk. When you feel your brain cannot take any more information, take a longer walk. When you start hating on your roommate, go home for a few days. When fed up with studying, my friends would go around the campus at night and spy on those making out in the oval or on the Sunken Garden. I feed the ducks at the Lagoon and walk barefoot on the grass. Anything just to get away from the books. A day’s break or a few hour’s break should be fine. Don’t end up like a friend of mine who, every time he hears of a store sale, is compelled to go there. He had to take the bar twice.