Quarterlife Crisis, a day chronicle.

Sad onigiri.

No one said law school was easy, but its reaching the point of me saying everyday 'kill me now' which was I ended up doing a few months before I left the working world. This isn't a whimsical, fly by the moment thing. Rather its the product of cumulative experiences from one semester to another.

I look back to one conversation I had with one of my favorite professors in law school. He described first years as the bright eyed, hopeful individuals who think that law school life is as shiny and bright as it is seen on TV. Years of Boston Legal, Estrada Impeachment Trial, and the Corona Impeachment Trial glamorized the profession to the level of Gossip Girl sensationalizing high school life. Then come their second year where they get the grades from the year before and see that life is not what it seems, become disappointed, see their numbers diminishing, and the general feeling of loss after seeing the class number literally halved. I'm on my third year now, some would say almost at the final stretch, so close, so close to reaching my goal or dooming my fate, asking myself once again do I really want to do this?

Political Science was marketed as the best undergraduate degree course back then. If you took it there's no other career track other than becoming a lawyer, otherwise you'd be stuck as a teacher, a researcher or a bank person, forever enduring the questions of why didn't you go to law school, questions which I endured when I was out there working. On one side half of the people I know in law school had PolSci degrees, but I think its more useful in practice if you had Accounting instead. At least you have the work cut out for you on subjects like Obligations and Contracts, Credit Transactions, and Corporation Law.

I am getting sidetracked.

Ah yes, the great halls of Malcolm Hall always looked pristine, imposing and tad bit intimidating before. Now sometimes I think of it as saddening. I wanted to call it home when I first entered but right now there are periods of revulsion. One professor refused to give me a grade because I cited another in our final paper and he found it insulting (due to a personal political feud). In the next year that professor made a guy kneel so that he would pass in the same subject that he refused to give me a grade in. Now he is a shoo in to be an Associate Justice in the Supreme Court. Now I wonder what it would take to win a case.

The year after that I found myself as an irregular student, going into fourth year and third classes, where the professors expect me to know the answers to subjects I have never taken before. Third year, still the odd man out especially with the re-blocking of the system. I feel like being the ultimate politician because I'm sure I've known entire batches by now. I'm happy to survive on a day to day existence.

Maybe I am suffering from the Facebook effect...
Every post on newsfeed shows all my friends getting married, spending summer in Paris, US, backpacking all over the ASEAN Countries, and here I am, here, getting by trying to keep my dignity intact against everyday onslaught of recitations, lack of sleep, and the generally different temperament of people in law school.

But at the end of the day even if Mom offered to ship me out of the country and not look back, i'm not quitting this until its finished. I don't want to wake up when I'm forty and realize how much I regret not finishing. Thanks love for reminding me that.

one year down, three to go

Classes have already ended, fully concluding my first year in law. It fills me a bit with nostalgia, and  I cannot help but look back at the things I encountered here.

Going to law school full time after a two year of break from university life threw me out of the loop.

1. Its a bit disconcerting to find classmates born in the 1990s when all this time I thought of them as kids. Its been a while since I've encountered doodles on page margins like these --->
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. It also put social life to a ground breaking halt ~ no more gimmicks or movies on payday nights, good bye to sleep-all-day-mall-till-it-closes weekends and hello to reading two reams of paper every week, and making digests/notes for each case you've read (ranges from 300-700 cases/ per subject/semester).
   
3. Sometimes I am filled with guilt about all the paper law students consume in a year (I swear when I become a hot shot lawyer I shall start contributing to Oplan Kalikasan or other tree planting organizations)
   
4. I used to go to school with just my wallet, a pocket notebook, Gtech 0.3 and a cellphone;
   Now I bought my first ever pencil case completely loaded with highlighters (replaced every week?); I have a P500 Yea! binder (most expensive ever, with 3 holes for future taking-apart and binding purposes), stapler, post-its, 3M banderitas, folders and tons of binder clips. My bag is so heavy that a boyfriend carrying it would consider it as a work-out regimen.
   
5. Time Management + Study Habits are forced to be formed.
   
6. Dealing with the relative vacuum- In relation to #2, law students are generally unaware of other things not related to law, case in point: When Chem Pavilion was burning which was across our building + Sunken Garden, we did not know about it at all until the next day because it was already on TV patrol. Sometimes you feel you haven't seen your outside world friends for two weeks so far when in reality you have been out of touch for 5 months already and then you wonder whether has it been that long really.
   
7. Drinking coffee is now Mandatory.
   
8. People only need 4 hours of sleep to function. Sometimes even less
   
9. Sedentary lifestyle. Do not bother with gym memberships, you will not go to it. Try buying a treadmill instead, one that comes with a book stand like what Sandra Bullock had in the opening of the movie, The Proposal. 

Breaking one of my childhood "truths"

Yesterday I went to UP Likas, UP ALYANSA, and UP Law Batch 2014 sponsored (I had to mention everyone of them because its election season and they all have to be mentioned in one way or another) forum series about the Legal System in the Philippines. For their first event, they decided to interview a Hubert Webb to describe his experiences when he was incarcerated due to the Vizconde Massacre.

When I first heard of this forum series, I was looking forward to it. I wanted to see for myself what does he have to say after everything. Considering this was a forum in UP, people are free to ask any question ( unlike if it were held in Ateneo, where they usually have participants write on a piece of paper so that they can screen questions before putting them forward to their guests). 

Seeing him there live was a bit surreal. Being part of the generation which grew up with the 'truth' that Hubert Webb killed the Vizconde family members out of jealousy while in a drug haze, I was among those who cried "Acquittal does not mean innocence" when the Supreme Court recently declared that the evidence presented cannot stand to convict him beyond reasonable doubt (before I even read the decision). To see him walk inside the halls of Malcolm, free, and escorted by his cousins who all look well, and well to do, I cannot help but have an internal cringe for poor Mr. Lauro Vizconde who cried on National TV when the SC reversed the ruling of the CA and the RTC.

Despite my biases I went; despite these biases I tried to keep an open mind. 

Before going up the stage, Hubert went into a corner and prayed. Then he went to the couch on the stage and  spent a couple of restless moments on it.

Hubert Webb was seated on the stage with a host named Gan (who also holds weekly educational sessions for prisoners detained at the Bilibid)  Atty. Adel Tamano who said UP Law was the best law school in QC only (he said please allow me to have this chance while my wife, a up law graduate, is not around), good looking as ever came in 2 hours late/r to answer law related questions like can the state be sued for its negligence in losing evidence (possible yes, winnable - doubtful), and against Inquirer for libel (same;same) 

Surprisingly, no one asked him if he really did it. Lol. However there were the usual questions - How was life for you now that you're out of the four walls? Great. Did you get to enjoy the paid "temporary freedoms"? No, it was only for low profile convicts. Why did you have a bigger cell than the rest of the inmates? Monetary donations to the institution helped. Did you pay for your freedom? If I could have paid for it, why did I have to wait for 15 years inside before doing so?. Did your brother really do it and your family pointed you to take the blame because you had a real alibi?No. Why was the fact that you were in US never came out? Because Teofisto Guingona and others hid the investigation report. Why did de Lima never confirm it? For some reason it she cannot seem to find the time to verify my presence when all it takes is one phone call all this time since I got out. Are your co-accused truly innocent? All I know is that they were in the Philippines and I wasn't. Did you ever take drugs while inside? Did you feel any bad feelings towards your fellow co-accused? One can't help but feel that way as I was the only one being interviewed all the time, they wouldn't talk and they all rode in my alibi Etc. He answered all the questions candidly, and truthfully. 

He said that he didn't mind the questions because the people asking them were the intelligent ones who are capable of critical analysis and will not paint him as the great demon (media) without hearing him first. For that reason, the media were also not allowed inside. Poor good looking Atom Araullo was sent away :( 

I was recording the entire thing but for some divine intervention, my camera heated up and hanged, and lost all 2 hours of it. Perhaps his prayer before the interview did work. 

I expected mudslinging, woe-is-me attitude, and I'm-free-in-your-face-cockiness, and I didn't find it. Instead I found a person who seemingly just came from John Rawl's Veil of Ignorance who advocates for the reform of the Philippine Criminal Justice system, reforms anyone of us can agree with (even if we have different opinions about his guilt). He described the lack of investigation, the absence of forensics capability, the negligence of the NBI to lose vital evidence, the promotion of system of Judges who gets brownie points for every conviction not every resolution of a case and the overcrowding in the prison systems. The problems in the system are undeniable and as he pointed out, if it could happen to the son of a rich politician, it can happen to anybody.

 A portion was spent on his youth, his thoughts looking back and his way ahead. This was the part which I found most enlightening. Problems are not something you can hide or run away from, you just deal. People may say that they have so many problems, but he has been there and that. "People have to have one truth that they believe in otherwise with all the pressure you will just want to kill yourself". His life was taken away from him. Does he experience any hate actions, yes he does. Did it affect him? He said his experience in prison was much worse than this and he can take it. He can understand why people actually do and accepts it. Until such time the real culprits are found will the perspective change. He adequately describes this facebook generation where people are so afraid to be unLiked and if negative comments are posted anonymously they keep thinking about it all they. Not being able to please everyone is a fact of life. Deal.

After the 3 hour session with him I found myself agreeing to most of what he said.

Do I still sympathize with Mr. Vizconde? 

I will offer him my condolences for the death of his family and that he is yet to find justice. 

Do I still think he is guilty? 

Reading the SC decision and how it was concluded, I agree. The evidence presented cannot convict him as the culprit for the Vizconde Massacre.

Do I still feel he is guilty? 

Maybe not.anymore.