Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen strongly urged Philippine lawyers to be part of those who will change the world and not sit and maintain the status quo, saying that they should overcome barriers to access to justice through grassroots action.

“The point of being a lawyer is not to maintain an unjust status quo but to change our world,” Leonen said as he spoke on developmental legal aid and cause-oriented lawyering at the National Presentation-Stories from the Field: Overcoming Barriers to Access to Justice through Grassroots Action last 22 May at the Hive Hotel and Convention Place in Quezon City.

He added that access to justice does not only mean that expedient and legal services are afforded to the underprivileged and marginalized.

Lawyers, according to Leonen, should take their “understanding of access to justice to another level and acknowledge that legal aid as a mode of improving access to justice scratches only the surface of systemic injustices and issues that many marginalized groups, identities, and communities continue to face.”