A classmate after mine own heart

My shorthand for his name in my text messages is Trick. And he is sure to respond when I asked him about topics and events in our law class even if he is in the midst of a regular weekend jaunts with his chums.

He said he has studied in the same school since his elementary grades until he finished a degree in Marine Biology. He thinks that  he ought to be given a loyalty discount now that he is taking up law in the same school. He was half-kidding I thought.

But he seemed serious when he said that he is studying to be a lawyer in order to please his father. Reminded me of my daughter who was asked during enrollment time why she was taking up electronics engineering at Don Bosco. Without hesitation she said it was the wish of her Tatay; and that would be me. But I think my daughter is enjoying her studies. She has always been my sidekick whenever I do utility repairs around the house: from electrical to carpentry to electronics repair.

And I think Trick is enjoying law school, too, and not just to please his father. Why else would he be getting  those good grades effortlessly while I have to struggle hard to commit a point of law to memory. I used to get good grades when I was a young student in college. But now, as I told my young classmates, much of my brain is like an aging hard drive, already with plenty of bad sectors in it.

But I like his worldview more than his adeptness with the law. He talks about the need to reduce our carbon footprint if we are to save this world. One time Trick refused to eat pizza which was a blowout from one of our professors. It was more about the plastic being used to serve the pizza that bothered him. Most other law students would rather talk only about jurisprudence when they are not busy with their facebook account. Yes, they do that - debate about jurisprudence and update their facebook inside the classroom because our law school is wifi-enabled.

Considering the batting average of the law school, I think he would be a lawyer before too long. Perhaps we'll still meet in court someday. Most probably with with me as his client since it is still an iffy situation for me to finish law school at all knowing that the casualty rate in our law school is bigger than its bar mortality rate.

A Professor after mine own heart

One evening our professor digressed into the situation of poor litigants. People who run afoul of the law or who are looking for relief from the court but cannot afford a lawyer are usually extended help by the Public Attorneys Office. But ordinary public school teachers cannot avail themselves of the PAO because they exceed the income bracket to be classified as poor litigants. But sometimes there are people, businessmen in fact, who qualify as poor litigants because they underdeclare their income or they do not file income tax returns at all. They can afford a private lawyer but they want the free services of the PAO.

Consider the Cebu Normal University, he said. It is a government school and was meant to provide education to poor families. But you can see private cars lining along its side fetching children of families who should have been able to afford tuition in private universities.

I also noticed this situation at the Cebu City National Science High School. Three of my sisters-in-law sent their children to Science High. From what I learned, their children were among the few who rode on jeepneys to and from school throughout their secondary school days. When it was our family's turn to send our children to school, we opted to send them to a private high school closer to home altho the school was of a lower caliber. Our family income was not enough to afford a better private high school. At the same time, I did not want to bump off a poorer child from a free schooling at the science high.

The rich, if you tolerate them, want freebies in education as well as in their income tax. I was happy to note that the professor and I share at least one  line of thinking.