INSPIRATIONAL SPEECH OF ATTY. MANUEL J. LASERNA JR. GIVEN BEFORE THE SPECIAL REUNION OF A SELECT GROUP OF THE ALUMNI OF THE INSTITUTE OF LAW OF FAR EASTERN UNIVERSITY SPONSORED BY THE FEU LAW STUDENT COUNCIL HELD ON JULY 12, 2013, Friday, AT 6:00-11:00 PM AT THE ABERDEEN COURT, QUEZON AVENUE, QUEZON CITY. I.
MY MEMORABLE YEARS AT THE FAR EASTERN UNIVERSITY (FEU) In 1984, when I took the Bar Examinations, I was 30 years old. Amidst the burdens of fatherhood and professional work, I studied law at the FEU Institute of Law, with courage and hope, under the inspirational guidance of the late Dean Neptali Gonzales, who later served as Senate President, and his distinguished Faculty of Law. Since the formation of the FEU Institute of Law before World War II, the FEU Faculty of Law has always been composed of prominent jurists, legal scholars and law practitioners. In the 198os, I was fortunate to be mentored by Dean Neptali Gonzales, Court of Appeals Presiding Justice Oscar Victoriano, Court of Appeals Associate Justice Oscar Herrera, Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Manuel Pamaran, Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Balajadia, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales, Dean Antonio Abad, Dean Ed Vincent Albano, and other exemplary legal minds. In the history of the Philippine Bar Examinations, Examinations, 1984 was the first time that the University of the Philippines did not land in the Top Ten. The Ateneo College of Law garnered 7 slots in the Top Ten in 1984, including the No. 1 and the No. 2 slots. We should note with pride that in the 1970 Bar Examinations, Examinations, the FEU Institute of Law garnered 6 slots in the Top Ten, including the No. 1 slot. The excellent 1970 track record of the FEU FEU Institute Institute of Law was broken only in 1984 1984 -- that is, after 14 years -- by the Ateneo Ateneo College of of Law when it garnered garnered 7 slots slots in the the Top Ten. To the entire FEU Community, the 1984 Bar Examinations Examinations was memorable because the FEU Institute of Law Law garnered the No. No. 3 slot in the Top Ten, thus, thus,
enhancing the reputation of the FEU Institute of Law as a reputable academic and practical training ground for future lawyers and jurists. Upon my admission to the Philippine Bar in 1985, having placed Third in the Top Ten of the 1984 Bar Examinations, I was invited by Dean Neptali Gonzales and Assistant Dean Antonio Abad, to teach at the FEU Institute of Law. I readily accepted the invitation as an opportunity to serve my alma mater. It might interest you to know that I spent my high school years from 1967 to 1971 at the Secondary Laboratory School of FEU. FEU formed my adolescence and taught me how to achieve my dreams as a young man. I was separated from FEU from 1971 to 1975 when I took up AB Journalism at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. From 1980 to 1984, I returned to FEU to study law. I was a scholar of a private organization where I was working as a department manager. From 1985 to 2006, or for 21 years, I taught at the FEU Institute of Law, except for a brief leave of absence in the early 1990s due to the demands of my corporate work and private law practice. When took up my Master of Laws degree at the Graduate School of the University of Santo Tomas from 1998 to 2000, as a scholar of the FEU Educational Foundation, I taught at the FEU Institute of Law at the same time. In 2006, I resigned from the faculty of the FEU Institute of Law to take care of my failing health and to give more time to my children, my private law practice, and my local Bar activities in the southern district of Metro Manila. All in all, I spent 30 years under the academic wings and the intellectual and moral training of the FEU Community. Indeed, the FEU Community formed my mind and my character as a person, citizen, and legal practitioner.
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TO THE LAW STUDENTS OF THE FEU INSTITUTE OF LAW Having been requested by the President of the Student Council of the FEU Institute of Law to inspire the FEU law students who are attending the event tonight, I can only emphasize one thing: There is no substitute for hard work, preparation, and a burning desire to succeed . As students of the FEU Institute of Law, you must be prepared:
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to sacrifice your leisure time in favor of your rigorous legal study, to stick to your academic mission and strategic priorities as students of law, to cut unnecessary social activities that may waste your time as productive law students, to invest your personal savings in current editions of recommended law textbooks and bar reviewers, to develop your modest personal law library this early little by little, including a personal digital database of useful laws and jurisprudence, to use modern legal technology and the Internet to improve your legal research and to expand your legal horizons, to practice the art of effective legal writing, to improve both your legal reasoning and your common-sensical or pragmatic reasoning, to practice the art of critical thinking by questioning the letter and the spirit of all the laws, cases and textbooks that you read and by questioning the theories and assumptions in the lectures and conclusions of your professors, to update yourselves on current domestic and cross-border legal issues and developments by regularly visiting reputable local and foreign law websites, to improve your reading speed and comprehension by constant reading and writing, to develop your leadership and your sense of volunteerism and good citizenship by engaging in extra-curricular activities, humanitarian outreach, and free legal clinics that will benefit your law school and the community, and, most important of all, to achieve inner peace and genuine happiness by learning to balance your student life, professional life, family life, and spiritual life. TO BE A GOOD LAWYER, ONE MUST FIRST BE A GOOD PERSON.
In my almost 30 years of private law practice, I have learned that an enlightened and happy person is not defined by his work, profession, wealth, connections, and public image. Your professional title as an attorney does not define who you are and does not determine your essence as a person. You are, first and foremost, a human being -- a person. To be a good lawyer, one must first be a good person, that is, he must first be a good spouse, a good parent to his children, a good child to his parents, a good friend, a good neighbor, a good citizen, and a good seeker of truth and justice. An enlightened person’s three-fold goals should be: to avoid evil, to do good, and to purify the mind. When you become private law practitioners in the future, you would realize that, although raising b business capital and collecting attorney’s fees are important duties because without them your law office would not survive in the competitive legal market, nonetheless, you must learn to discipline your mind to be detached from the enticements of greed and to live a modest life without hatred and envy, purifying your mind of impurities that may destroy your inner peace and equanimity and that may obstruct your liberation as pilgrims in this lifetime. In closing, we, the FEU law alumni, hope you all the best. May you all be happy! Thank you.
