VALEDICTORY ADDRESS OF ATTY. MANUEL J. LASERNA JR., FOUNDING/OUTGOING PRESIDENT OF THE LAS PINAS CITY BAR ASSOCIATION, DELIVERED DURING THE INDUCTION INTO OFFICE OF THE INCOMING 2003-2004 DIRECTORS AND OFFICERS OF THE LAS PINAS CITY BAR ASSOCIATION HELD ON MAY 28, 2003 AT 6:00 PM AT THE NATURE CAFÉ, MARY IMMACULATE PARISH CHURCH, LAS PINAS CITY, PHILIPPINES.
As Convenor and Outgoing President of the Las Pinas City Bar Association (LPBA), and in behalf of my Co-Convenor and colleague in the law academe, Prof. Myrna Cueva-Mercader, I am honored to turn over the management of our association to our newly elected Directors, Officers and Advisers, led by the following distinguished leaders of the Bar and the law academe:
a) Assistant Solicitor General and Ateneo Professor of Law, Hon. Magdangal de Leon, who chairs the Board of Directors, a position he has been competently discharging since March 2002;
b) the Past National President of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, the Founding Chairman of the Lawyers for Roco/Lawyers for Reform Movement, and a Founding Member of our association, Atty. Arthur Lim, who co-chairs the Board of Advisers;
c) Atty. Mar Reyes (UP Class 1962), the Founding Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Past Chairman of the Board of Advisers, who co-chairs the Board of Advisers with Atty. Arthur Lim; and
d) the Incoming President of the association, Atty. Richard Funk, of UP Law, Class 1964, a holder of the degree of Master of Laws from Cornell University, a veteran lawyer, educator and businessman, a Rotarian, a member of the Focolare Movement, and a former professor of civil law, labor law and commercial law.
I am confident that the proven leadership, professionalism, academic credentials and sense of public service of the incoming directors, officers, and advisers of our association, led by Assistant Solicitor General Magdangal de Leon, Atty. Arthur Lim, Atty. Mar Reyes, and Atty. Richard Funk, will inspire, nurture and shepherd our association to achieve its noble goals of:
a) unifying the members of the local Bar as a basic pillar of our local justice system;
b) elevating the professional competence, continuing legal education, and ethical standards of our members as independent and zealous advocates of the rule of law and social justice and as responsible officers of the court;
c) promoting the constitutional right of the poorest of the poor, the oppressed and the neglected sectors of our community to have a fair, effective, expeditious and inexpensive access to the courts and the justice system by strengthening our free legal aid program, initiating a community legal education program and a paralegal training and development program and by promoting constructive multi-sectoral dialogues among all the pillars of the local justice system to effectively monitor the delivery of justice and legal services to the poor, the oppressed and the neglected sectors of the community;
d) enhancing our institutional linkages with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines and its local chapter covering the district of Pasay City, Paranaque City, Las Pinas City and Muntinlupa City, as well as with other domestic and foreign voluntary Bar associations, law NGOs and law education centers; and
e) gradually achieving our long-term objective of becoming the organizational seed for the future formation of an independent IBP chapter in Las Pinas City, hopefully within three to five years from now, with the permission and support of the IBP district chapter in charge of our city, assuming that we would able to meet the quantitative membership requirements under the IBP National By-Laws ; and, more importantly,
f) actively and courageously participating and making our official position and voice known on all controversial national and international issues that may have a crucial bearing on the rule of law, the administration of justice, the promotion of truth, freedom, democracy, peace, economic equity, social justice, and political healing of our own nation and of the relationships of nations, the eradication of graft and corruption, and the promotion of governmental transparency and accountability and good corporate governance in the private sector.
We collectively created history in our city by organizing, for the first time, its local Bar on March 21, 2001 right here in this hallowed venue. I am honored to have worked with all of you in creating that history. The renowned American social futurologist, Prof. Peter Drucker, has written: “The best way to predict your future is simply to create it”. We all did just that. We are a young organization, but, just like the youth, we have the advantages of innovation, speed, idealism and self-confidence. As the motto of the Seabees, a quick reaction force of the US Navy, goes: “The difficult we do immediately. The impossible will take a little longer”. We will create our future. We will do it immediately.