A LONG Reposo Street, Makati, near St. Andrews church, are a row of upscale restaurants, almost always filled with customers at lunchtime.

Last week, at lunchtime, two fully armed men barged into one of them, a Thai restaurant—and announced a holdup. Male and female customers were especially deprived of their wallets, cellphones, handbags and wristwatches. And it only took less than three minutes. Surprisingly, the security guard was conveniently in the restroom.

It looks like robbers are getting more daring these days. Or, is it because the police are getting more lax? Why wasn’t the robbery reported to the police, much less was media informed?

The Makati police should adopt more stringent security measures especially since robbers seem to know when and where to strike. Restaurant customers should be forewarned against eating in places where security is lax or worse, not present at all.

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Retired Chief Justice Art Panganiban, in his column in another newspaper, brought up a very interesting point in reforms in legal education.

This is timely, given the small percentage of Bar passers every year in spite of the great number of law schools nationwide. In 1991, there were 59 law schools in all. The number has gone up to 95 in 2005.

And, if you examine carefully the topnotchers in the Bar, they almost always come from the University of the Philippines or from the Ateneo de Manila University. While this year’s topnotcher came from the University of the Cordilleras, he was the exception rather than the rule.

In other words, there must be something basically wrong with our legal education.

According to Panganiban, there are four proposals to improve legal education. The Supreme Court has not acted upon these proposals, since it did not have authority to supervise law schools directly. These proposals were referred to the Legal Education Board created by law to raise the standards of legal education. But, since the LEB has not been operational—its members have not yet been appointed and its budget not yet allocated—the proposals remain in limbo.

The four proposals are: (1) the accreditation and supervision of law schools; (2) the inclusion of clinical education (apprenticeship) in the law curriculum; (3) the imposition of sanctions on substandard law schools; and (4) the taking of the national admission tests by those entering a law school.

It is quite known that the standard of legal education has gone down several notches since decades ago when law schools started mushrooming. But would you believe we have more lawyers than any other profession in the country today?

I consider these reforms in legal education critical and necessary if we must raise the standard of the legal profession. And the judicial system, for that matter.

***

The retired chief justice has an advocacy which I share—lawyers must adhere to an ethical compass.

In the words of Panganiban: “Nothing is more demeaning to the legal profession than scheming attorneys who obsessively use every trick and technicality to delay or obstruct what is a fairly due to the opposite parties. Many lawyers resort to almost trick in the book to circumvent the law.”

Retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide started basic forms in judiciary, continued by Panganiban. Now, judicial reforms have become the hallmark of Chief Justice Reynato Puno’s incumbency. In so short a time that Puno has become chief justice, so many corrupt and ignorant judges and even justices have been dismissed.

Insofar as legal ethics is concerned, I fully agree with Panganiban that more than competence, legal ethics should be emphasized both in basic legal education and in the Bar exams. And more than merely increasing its percentage share—legal ethics has only 5 percent share in Bar exams—ethics should permeate and be asked in all Bar subjects.

If ethics becomes deep-rooted into the consciousness of lawyers, perhaps there’s still hope of producing ethics lawyers with high moral standards. And hopefully check corruption in the judiciary.

***

Here is another legal point. My attention was caught by the column of another retired Supreme Court Justice—Isagani Cruz—on Section 67 of the Omnibus Election Code. This provides that candidates running for positions other than the ones they are actually holding will forfeit such offices upon filing of their certificates of candidacy except only when they are running for president or vice president of the Philippines.

While there’s this provision in the Omnibus Election Code, it was effectively repealed by Republic Act 9006, otherwise known as the Fair Election Act of 2003. How did this happen?

It appears, according to Cruz, that while the RA deals in detail with political advertising and makes no mention of the rule concerning candidates running for elective offices other than the ones they are actually holding, out of the blue came Section 14 which stated that “Section 67 and 85 of the Omnibus Election Code [BP 881] and Sections 10 and 11 of Republic Act 6646 are hereby repealed.”

In effect, Senators Lito Lapid and Fred Lim can always go back to the Senate if they are not elected Makati and Manila mayor, respectively.

But, since Section 14 of RA 9006, effectively repealing Section 67 of the Omnibus Election Code, is what is called a “rider,” which has nothing to do with the Fair Election Act, it’s definitely unconstitutional and can be challenged in court. It gives an undue advantage to senators running for lower positions like Congress, and local positions like governors and mayors.

And guess who inserted that rider? According to reports, it was the late Senator Rene Cayetano, father of Senator Pia and senatorial candidate Alan Peter Cayetano.

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Why was outgoing Senator Frank Drilon so hot trying to get Team Unity candidates Mike Defensor and Miguel Zubiri disqualified by the Commission on Elections for electioneering in Hong Kong some three weeks ago?

According to Comelec Chairman Ben Abalos, the campaign period for senatorial and party-list groups in the country and abroad has not yet ended, even though the absentee voting is now ongoing abroad.

It is clear that Drilon’s outcry for Defensor and Zubiri to be disqualified has no legal basis since the campaign period ends in May 12. That includes places where there is absentee voting. If Drilon’s claim is sustained, then campaigning by all candidates in the Philippines has to end on April 28 when the voting for local absentee voters starts. Stupid, isn’t it?

Why is Drilon so hot in the collar against Mike, anyway? The reason is that he thinks it was Defensor who engineered the formation of the Atienza Liberal Party wing.

Well, good luck next time, Frank.

***

Recently, Team Unity candidate Prospero “Butch” Pichay introduced his newest mascot, which of course carries his face, but in green “supersuit,” with the vegetable “pechay” in the middle. He is now called “Super Pechay” out to defend the poor and the oppressed. It’s an eyecatcher and definitely aimed at recall.

Although he’s Butch to friends and family, he really doesn’t mind all the jokes about him which he takes good-naturedly, and even uses them for name-recall. He has been the butt of jokes by the opposition, saying Pichay is now the highest ranking in a survey of vegetables from the market.

But, that’s all music to the ears of Butch, saying that it proves that his awareness has actually propped up. He even extended the name-calling of his own name as he said that if he wins, then the Senate would have a “prosperous” country—prosperous, a spin-off of his name Prospero.

Pichay says: “Well if we’re friends, then call me Butch. But you can also call me Prospero. It’s nice name. That means that if I’m elected we will have a prosperous country and then you can call me Pichay if want to be healthy. Call me either, I won’t mind.”

***

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez may be a lot of things to a lot of people. He may even be tactless at times when he says what he means and means what he says.

But I like him when he told a group of foreign parliamentarians who wanted Gonzalez to move for the release of leftist Anakpawis party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran. Gonzalez said he had nothing to do with Beltran’s case because it is now in court, and that the foreigners should stop dictating on us Filipinos what to or what not to do.

Go Raul!