Notario Publico: Kailan at Bakit mo ito Kailangan

 Kung may isang legal term na tila pamilyar ang nakararami, iyon maaari ang notary public. Sa katunayan, masyado itong talamak na sa Recto Avenue sa Maynila o maging sa mga singit-singit na eskinitang malapit sa mga government offices, may mga signages ng notary public. Nagkalat sila.

 Subalit ano ba talaga ang notary public? Gaano ito kahalaga lalo na para sa mga karaniwang mamamayan? Tama ba na nakikita na lamang ito kung saan-saan?

 Isa ang notary public sa mga legal services na available in the Philippines na ginagawa ng isang abogado upang patunayan ang pagiging authentic ng isang dokumento at ng mga lagda na nakalagay doon. Isa rin itong proseso upang magkaroon ng tanda na umaayon sa batas ang nilalaman ng isang dokumento gaya ng kontrata, at kung sakaling kakailanganin, maaari itong ma-admit as evidence sa hukuman.

Sinasabing para maging valid ang isang kontrata, sapat na ang consent, subject at cause, anumang form ang mayroon ito; subalit kung hayagang itinatakda ng batas na may form na kailangang sundin para maging valid ang isang kasulatan, kailangan itong ipa-notaryo. Ilan sa mga dokumentong ito ang deed of sale, real estate mortgage, waiver of rights, deed of donation, deed of assignment, special power of attorney, affidavit of loss, at iba pang kahalintulad ng mga nabanggit.

 Sapagkat isa sa mga legal services na mayroon sa Philippines ang pagpapa-notaryo, hindi dapat ito isugal lamang sa mga so-called notary publics na nakikita lamang kung saan-saan. Hindi tama ang nakagawiang ito sa Pilipinas. Tanging mga abogado ang may kapangyarihan na mag-notaryo ng anumang dokumento, at kailangang personal nilang lagdaan ang notarization.

Kung sakaling magkaroon ng dispute sa kasulatan at makarating ito sa hukuman, may kapangyarihan ang korte na ipawalang-bisa ang isang kasulatan kung mapatutunayang hindi mismong abogado ang nag-notaryo o hindi tama ang proseso ng pagno-notaryo rito! Kaya kung legal services lang din sa Philippines, kailangang ipagkatiwala na ito sa sigurado. Isa ang Nicolas & De Vega Law Offices sa nagbibigay ng de-kalidad at siguradong legal services sa bansa, kabilang na ang pagpapa-notaryo; at kung karapatan ang pag-uusapan, hindi tayo dapat magbaka-sakali at sumugal.

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Law Quick Facts: What are Corporate Lawyers?

While most of you have known lawyers as the one who constantly argues in the court to defend their clients, majority also thinks that the job of all lawyers are the same. Well, to tell you honestly, lawyers that are always ready for an argument are called litigators.

Though, this is somewhat true to what corporate lawyers usually do, as explained thru the video, a corporate lawyer is the one who helps in creating company contracts, mergers or any company legal matters.

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What Kind of Lawyer in Manila Do you Want to Be Part 1

The road to becoming a lawyer in the Philippines is hard, stressful, and will leave you with eye bags but why do people still want to go into learning the law & passing the board exams? Not only is lawyering a very prestigious job in that your become an agent of justice, being a lawyer in Manila especially means that you are also potentially going to enjoy a lucrative career life.

When taking up law in the Philippines, you have to learn the whole of the law but after you graduate law school and pass the board exam, you will eventually designate yourself to a specialization or area of law where you can be known for. Not every specialization pays as good as the next but if you’re into law with the dream of becoming rich or well connected, there are 5 law branches that either pay well or get  you known.

Criminal Defense Lawyer

Criminal defense lawyers are the ones that most people would be familiar with as they are the ones most commonly portrayed in popular media. They are the lawyers that represent people who are jailed for criminal offenses. Criminal defense cases are many which means that you’d have a lot to work with if you choose to go down this road even though pay isn’t that good (depending on the client). Winning criminal cases will eventually make you more popular enough for you to transition into other roads of lawyering or charge more for your services.

Civil Lawyer

Civil law attorneys represent people who have disputes with other people or organizations outside the scope of criminality. There is a very wide range of other field that are included in civil law or categorized as civil cases but some of the more popular are family law, medical law, and law on claims by individuals against their employers which brings us to the next type of lawyer.

Corporate Lawyer

Big businesses have their own group of lawyers that represent them as well as does internal checks to see if the actions of the business are legal. They are called corporate lawyers. In case a civil case lawyer represents a distressed employee, they would be going against the corporate lawyers of the employer. You’ll find a lot of corporate lawyers in Manila, Makati, Quezon City, and basically most of NCR because the bigger corporations take office there.

Need a corporate lawyer? Visit ndvlaw.com.

Labor Lawyer

A more specific type of a civil attorney is the labor lawyer. They are civil case lawyers that specialize on labor cases, representing the workforce among others. Labor law is a good field to be in because there is a modest amount of cases and winning cases not only gets you more popularity, you get to win your client claims as well as be granted a portion of it—a win-win situation, to be honest.

Professor of Law

This is one of the penultimate goal of lawyers in the Philippines mostly because it is very stable (you work as an employee) and at the same time, it is a mark that you have a very good grasp of the law enough for you to teach it. But professorship is only especially attainable for lawyers who have already proven themselves through practice as well as peripheral education.

If you want to pursue becoming a lawyer in Manila, regardless of your prospective future specialty, you will need to learn the law in its full to be able to get through law school and pass the board exam but knowing what kind of lawyer you eventually want to be might help you stay focused and motivated. 

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Bar Top-notching Lawyers in Manila? Not This Year!

It has been a national notion the when we hear the words “top attorneys in the Philippines,” there’s an automatic conclusion that these guys must have come from one of the most famous universities in the Philippines, specifically in NCR like University of the Philippines (UP), Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), De La Salle University (DLSU), San Beda University, Arellano University, and other U-Belt big names.

This year however, we saw a peculiar but delightful phenomenon: the 2016 Bar Exam Top 10 was swept by schools outside Manila! Really, great lawyers in the Philippines aren’t just found in Manila but all over the country.

[photo: prcboard.com]

According to Inquirer, “all topnotchers of the 2016 Bar Exams came from law schools outside Metro Manila,” annexing that only 2 from the 12 from the top 10 were from law schools in Luzon. This year, Visayas and Mindanao did some major representing of adding to the brilliant pool of attorneys in the Philippines.

On the top of all the other ‘notchers is Karen Mae Calam of the University of San Carlos (USC) with a rating of 89.05%. Since the bar exams are in the form of question and response essays, Calam says, “It’s how barristers answer and how the examiners appreciate the answer,” and that, because of this, no one school can claim supremacy over law education and that brilliance can still be discovered in and out of Manila. She is joined in the top 10 by 3 other USC graduates Fiona Cristy Lao, Anne Margaret Momongan, and Jefferson Gomez.

Not only has the result of this year’s exam challenge the notion that Metro means better, we also observed the highest turn out of board passers since raising the passing grade back to 75% (the SC lowered the passing rate to 70% in 2007 due to low passing probability at only 5% of 5,626 of applicants) and the majority of the top 10 (8/12) is female.

Becoming an attorney in the Philippines is a road filled with much struggles but also of colorful stories like that of the security guard in Baguio who worked and studied his way to becoming a lawyer while also supporting a family. Truly, lawyers in Manila are without question competent and amazing but the same can be said about any other hardworking and dignified attorney anywhere else in the Philippines.

Article by: NDV Law

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The Current Situation of Public Legal Service in the Philippines

Discussion about the rules and law of the land is always sensitive and complex. It requires deep understanding on how process and procedures are conducted. Studying about it also takes years. As a matter of fact, a lawyer before being able to give legal services in the Philippines should undergo undergrad education that usually takes 4 years and another 4 for law school. After studying, there is still the need to pass the bar exam—a feat that is known to be nothing less than difficult. In the 2015, only 26.21% of the bar takers passed and this has only been the highest passing percentage since 2011. In 1999, only 16.59 percent passed—the lowest percentage of law bar exam passer in the history of the Philippines to date. And even after all of that, a bar passer should still practice law and take mandatory continuing education to be able to provide legal services to the public.

But the thing is that not every lawyer that passes the bar exam wants to work for the government or for the public. Most of these lawyers go after big law firms or apply for a position in a legal department of some big company. As lawyers have become the central the way business is done concerning issues that needs the application of law and prevailing regulations, the pull for demand for lawyers to stay in this private companies heightens, not to mention the compensation that they can get.

In Feb 23 2010, Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed the Republic Act. 9999—an act authored by Senator Lito Lapid. The republic act is also known as the act providing mechanism for free legal assistance and for other purposes. The section 5 of the said law grants lawyers up to 10 percent deduction from their annual taxable income to encourage them to render free legal services. This is provided that the actual free legal services herein contemplated shall be exclusive of the minimum sixty (60)-hour mandatory legal aid services rendered to indigent litigants as required under the Rule on Mandatory Legal Aid Services for Practicing Lawyers, under BAR Matter No. 2012, issued by the Supreme Court

While this sounds like huge incentives for lawyers and a wonderful attempt of the government to pull private lawyers into the aid of the public that needs legal service, there might still be huge need for lawyers to fill. Even though it has been reported last August 2016 that the crime rate in the country has lowered, there is no denying that legal aid or service is something that is should be readily available for Filipino citizen when they need it.

Now with the things mentioned above, you may now have a picture on the situation of how accessible legal services are in the Philippines. As we enter a new era in Philippine governance, and with another lawyer leading the country in Rodrigo Duterte, who knows, we might see a drastic change on how legal services are catered in the Philippines.

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Lawyers Making Laws: A Closer Look at the Lawyers in the Senate

Being an attorney is probably one of the highest regarded careers in the Philippines. In fact, majority of the elected presidents, vice-presidents, and even members of the legislative department are from this profession. Some names that are worth mentioning are the three highest political positions in the country: the current head of state of the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte; the current vice-president of the Philippines, Leni Robredo; and the Senate President, Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III. Even though some may say what made them famous is their reputation as public servants and politicians, the mere fact that eight out of the past fifteen president Philippines are attorneys is enough proof to support how the profession has helped them to get to their position and carry out their duties.

Currently, there are 24 senators in the legislative department. Their main duties are to pass laws and investigate national issues. In this light, it is only reasonable that someone from the legislative department has a good background on law.

Among the these 24 senators in the Philippines, eight are lawyers or attorneys and they are the following:

Sonny Angara – Angara has passed on more than 60 laws. He finished his law degree at the University of the Philippines College of Law, and earned his Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

Pia Cayetano – During her young career as a lawyer, she has specialized in corporate law and intellectual property laws. She graduated from University of the Philippines with an academic distinction.

Alan Peter Cayetano – He graduated from Ateneo de Manila University. He is also the Chair of the Philippine Agrarian Reform Committee.

Leila De Lima – In 1985, De Lima has placed 8th in the Bar Examination, bringing pride to her alma mater, San Beda College, where she earned her law degree.

Franklin M. Drilon - Drilon is probably one of the most seasoned senators in the Philippines. He completed his degree in 1969 in UP College of Law and placed third in the bar examination of the same year.

Francis Escudero – He finished his law degree at the University the Philippines and has passed the bar examination on 1994. In 1996, he obtained a Master’s degree in International and Comparative Law at Georgetown Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Richard J. Gordon – Gordon is also the current Chairman of the Philippine Red Cross. He has pursued his law degree at the University of the Philippines College of Law.

Kiko Pangilinan - In his early career as a lawyer by giving free legal assistance on-air and closely monitored case progress through the television program Hoy Gising! in ABS-CBN where he was a co-anchor and segment host.

Koko Pimentel – The aforementioned current Senate President has finished his Bachelor of Laws degree from University of the Philippines College of Law. He has also topped the 1990 Philippine Bar Examinations.

While being a public servant or politician in the Philippines doesn’t required a specific educational attainment to run for public office as it stated in the 1987 Constitution, a decent educational background still plays a big role in winning the voters’ ink. It just makes perfect sense that someone that will be implementing, making, and investigate rulings should have adequate knowledge about law itself. And with the things that has been going in politics that most of the time renders us confuse with what is exactly is going on, it will be a mild tap in the back knowing that there are several people in the legislative department that has background on how to be an attorney or lawyer in the Philippines.

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Philippine Penal Code: The Insanity Plea

You are probably here because you are interested in the things that can get you off a crime. We’re not saying that you have a criminal mind, but you do have a curious one, you don’t want to go asking a Philippine attorney, and you want to know if insanity can get a person off the legal hook.

First thing that you have to know is that things that get you off the hook or at least lessen your sentence are called pleas and when you start talking about how much your plea diminishes or negates the gravity of your supposed sentence, it’s called plea bargaining.

Insanity is one of many pleas but is probably among the most used in recent years and even then, at least 4 US states have disqualified the insanity defense. In the Philippines, the exemption is detailed in Item 1, Article 12, Chapter 2 of the Philippine Penal Code.

Art. 12. Circumstances which exempt from criminal liability. — the following are exempt from criminal liability:
1. An imbecile or an insane person, unless the latter has acted during a lucid interval.
When the imbecile or an insane person has committed an act which the law defines as a felony (delito), the court shall order his confinement in one of the hospitals or asylums established for persons thus afflicted, which he shall not be permitted to leave without first obtaining the permission of the same court.
[from: chanrobles.com]

In the context of the penal code, we can see that it illustrates the condition for exemption but not what qualifies for insanity or imbecility.

There are many standards to determine mental incapacity like the M’Naughten standard and Durham rule but it all boils down to what must exist to justify a conviction. Two things have to be proven to qualify a conviction: a suspect must be proven to have both a guilty mind (mens rea) and there must be physical manifestation of the guilty act (actus reus).

Actus reus requires “if someone got murdered, then it can be proven with a dead body.” Pretty straightforward. Mens rea requires “if someone got murdered, it can be proven with the murderer’s conscious intention that he wanted his victim dead.” It is therefore the burden of the Philippine attorney’s defense to prove that mens rea was absent at the time the crime happened to be able to qualify his client and have him be objectified as insane.

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