DR. SALVADOR H. LAUREL:
JUSTICE FOR THE POOR WAS HIS MISSION
By C.D. Bonoan
“If every lawyer in the country would only handle one case for an aggrieved pauper litigant, that would go a long way in restoring the faith of the poor in the administration of justice.” - Doy Laurel, 1968
Dr. Salvador H. Laurel was many things to many people: Senator, Member of the Interim Batasang Pambansa, Prime Minister, Vice President, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, President of the Nacionalista Party, Chairman of the Philippine Centennial Commission, and others. But for the many who are poor, Doy, as he was fondly called, is best remembered as the “Defender of the Defenseless.”
Doy Laurel finished law at the University of the Philippines in 1952 and passed the bar examinations that same year. Like his father, young Doy went on to Yale University for his Masters of Law Degree and later a Doctorate in Juridical Science, majoring in labor law and corporation law.
Young barrister
As a young practicing lawyer in the sixties, Doy Laurel undoubtedly excelled in the legal profession. By all indications, he was doing well with his law practice. "I was winning cases and getting good clients," he narrated. His love for learning also led him to teach law at the Lyceum, the university founded by his esteemed father in 1952.
Though Doy Laurel was first brought to the limelight in the celebrated Laurel-Silva case in 1965, it was in the field of free legal assistance that his star begun to rise. As things turned out, defending court cases for indigents proved to be his own catharsis on the inequality of justice in the country.
Seminal case
Indeed, “justice delayed is justice denied.” Nowhere perhaps can one find a more vivid illustration to this than the case Doy Laurel handled in 1966 - the case of Carlos Leonor.
So the story goes that sometime in 1966, then President of the Philippine Bar Association, Justice Roman Ozaeta, rang him up one morning. For a while, it sounded just a casual call. After all, Doy was an in-demand lawyer at those times. That fateful call eventually led Doy Laurel to a case of a woman whose husband had been murdered – his bullet-riddled body was found stuffed in a trashcan somewhere in Paranaque. And the suspected culprit? A notorious policeman. Obviously, the story had all the requirements for anomalous case that it was.
In Doy’s instinct at least, culled from his extensive experience as a trial lawyer, this was ostensibly a clear case of police brutality. But social conscience moved him as well: “She was very poor she could not afford to press charges.” Needless to say, that reason alone was enough to convince Doy, son of the foremost exponent of social justice Dr. Jose P. Laurel, to accept the case – pro bono.
Finally on the strength of his own investigation, Doy filed a case against the policeman and succeeded in getting a conviction. Once again, the case crashed the headlines and so did Doy. “I felt good handling that case for free and winning it,” Doy would recall many years later. “I had lived up to my lawyer’s oath never to turn down the case of the defenseless and the oppressed for pecuniary reasons.”
Birth of CLAC
But Doy’s mission was far from over. As a matter of fact, it was really just a beginning of a lifetime commitment to bring justice within the reach of the poor.
After the Carlos Leonor case, it became clear to Doy that the cries of justice still rang out, especially to the many poor Filipinos who badly needed legal representation in court. Sadly, to the uncaring public, the Leonor case was just another case. Not so for Doy. At the outset, again with the help of Justice Roman Ozaeta, Doy Laurel formed a legal aid committee under the Philippine Bar Association composed of some of the brightest legal luminaries of the day. Among them were Crispin Baizas, Jose Y. Feria, Juan T. David, Gonzalo W. Gonzales, Juan Luces Luna, J. Antonio Araneta, Alberto M.K. Jamir, Francisco Ortigas, Jr. and Angel C. Cruz. And so the Citizen’s Legal Assistance Committee (CLAC) was born.
Parisio Tayag case
The birth of CLAC could not have been better timed as police abuses, police brutality in particular, were on the prowl in the 1960s. Now, more than ever, the times called for vigilant action. Sure enough, CLAC heeded the call without fanfare. Then came the Pariso Tayag case that propelled CLAC prominently in the spotlight.
Doy Laurel remembers this case well: An impoverished bus driver in Dinalupihan, Bataan, Tayag figured in a minor traffic accident. A policeman tried to get him to cough up P300. The man offered P10, the only money he had. An argument ensued. The policeman drew his gun, Tayag pulled out his knife, but ran away instead when the policeman aimed at him. A chase followed, joined by five other policemen. Cornered in the town plaza, Tayag was shot dead. His widow, pregnant with their sixth child, lost her baby, and her mind.
True to his reputation as the quintessential “Defender of the Defenseless,” Doy Laurel stood as counsel for the offended party, the Tayag children. “The trial was news,” he goes on to write, “because CLAC had come to the aid of five orphans who could have been helpless in securing justice.”
In court, Doy Laurel reasoned that the policemen had used excessive force. “There was no need to gun Tayag down,” Doy argued. “Six policemen could have easily cornered one man.”
So it was that justice had its day, as the six policemen, members of the Dinalupihan Police Force, were all convicted of murder. Thanks in no small measure to Doy Laurel and the crusading lawyers of CLAC, whose timely entry spurred the swift administration of justice for the Tayag children.
An urgent mission beckons - CLASP
To Doy's surprise, however, an explosive situation still lay ahead. In a matter of weeks, CLAC was swamped with hundreds of requests for legal aid. Doy recalls: “I found out that 94% of the cases filed by the poor people in the fiscal’s office were dismissed because the complainants couldn’t afford a lawyer. Imagine, 94%! The complaints of the poor against criminal abuse were mostly thrown out for lack of counsel!”
Faced with these formidable challenges, Doy Laurel vowed to do more in making justice a reality for the poor and the oppressed. It was during his stint as chairman of CLAC that he conceived the idea of establishing a larger legal aid group - the Citizen’s Legal Aid Society of the Philippines, the original legal aid organization in the country. Doy, who happened to be an excellent organizer and a passionate crusader, crisscrossed the country exhorting the best lawyers to organize free legal aid chapter in each town and province. Since then, CLASP had organized more than 50 provincial and city chapters nationwide, handling an average of 18,000 cases a year. Doy Laurel’s trailblazing efforts in this field did not escape public admiration, for in 1967 the Justice and Court Reporters Association honored the young Laurel with the “Lawyer of the Year Award”.
Justice for the poor
The same year, in November 1967, Doy Laurel was elected to the Senate where he eloquently championed good government and social justice. In keeping with his campaign promise, the cause that thrust him into the halls of the old illustrious Senate, Doy authored five laws which insured speedy and impartial justice for the poor. These laws, which are popularly known as the Laurel Laws, give indigent litigants among others, free copies of stenographic notes, free transportation, food and lodging for themselves and their witnesses, exemption from payment of legal fees, priority in trial, exemption from bail and full credit for time spent under preventive suspension --- privileges and rights which should be incessantly accorded to our needy fellowmen.
Legacy
On August 16, 1976, in recognition of his pioneering service on legal aid, Dr. Salvador H. Laurel brought honor not only to himself and his family, but to the entire country being the recipient of the “Most Outstanding Legal Aid Lawyer of the World” award of the International Bar Association (IBA) in Stockholm, Sweden. Ironically, it was not this award what truly defined Doy Laurel’s commitment for the cause of the needy. In fact, even after his retirement from public life, Doy Laurel was willing to devote his remaining years with CLASP. It was this sincere and unrelenting service that he quipped:
“I may quit politics, but I shall never quit CLASP."
*C.D.Bonoan is presently the Curator of the Salvador H. Laurel Museum and Library.
This article was initially published in “A Musical Tribute to Doy Laurel on His 90th Birthday,” Salvador H. Laurel Foundation Inc., 2018
© 2020 Salvador H. Laurel Museum and Library
