Is Cayosa’s IBP still credible?

“Fajardo was also a staunch supporter of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who was ousted by the Supreme Court in May 2018 in the wake of a petition filed by Solicitor General Calida.

Last week, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), through its president, Domingo Egon Cayosa, announced that it is willing to work with the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (SC), Diosdado Peralta.

The willingness of the IBP to work with Chief Justice Peralta is one thing. Whether or not the IBP is still a credible lawyers organization with whom the new chief justice is willing to work with, is another.

Undoubtedly, Cayosa has one hell of a task restoring the credibility of his lawyers organization. That’s because in recent years, the leaders of the IBP gave the public a bad impression of the nation’s bar association.

Last May, IBP President Abdiel Dan Elijah Fajardo got the IBP involved in a partisan political controversy. Fajardo organized a press conference at the IBP office to accommodate Peter Joemel “Bikoy” Advincula, an ex-convict supposedly involved in viral videos linking President Duterte and his family to the illegal drug trade.

At the press conference, Advincula claimed that drug money was deposited by syndicates in the bank accounts of Duterte’s son Paolo Duterte, his son-in-law Manases Carpio, and his personal aide Christopher “Bong” Go, who is now a senator. Advincula had no evidence to support his story.

Solicitor General Jose Calida and the Davao City chapter of the IBP criticized Fajardo for using the IBP premises for partisan politics, when the IBP is supposed to shun partisan politics.

The Kabalikat Party even filed disbarment charges against Fajardo and Cayosa, who was the IBP executive vice president at that time.

Fajardo was also a staunch supporter of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who was ousted by the SC in May 2018 in the wake of a petition filed by Solicitor General Calida. Days after Sereno’s removal, Fajardo, who was already the IBP president at that time, said the IBP intends to join the litigation and question the High Court’s ruling.

Aside from those partisan acts, there were also omissions.

Last July, Amal Clooney, a British-Lebanese human rights lawyer married to Hollywood actor George Clooney, announced that she is joining the legal team defending local media personality Maria Ressa in the cases filed against her by the Philippine government.

Clooney insinuated that the cases against Ressa are harassment suits designed to silence her online news outlet Rappler, which has been critical of the administration of President Duterte.

There is one problem, though. Under the Constitution, aliens like Clooney are not allowed to practice Law in the Philippines.

Instead of protesting Clooney’s disregard for the Constitution, the IBP kept silent about Clooney’s grandstanding. It was a clear example of the IBP ignoring Clooney’s obvious insult to Filipino lawyers.

The IBP also conveniently kept silent after it was discovered last July that lawyers Andre Palacios and Jose Manuel Diokno (yes, the defeated senatorial candidate) made it appear to the SC that their class suit clients, who were fishermen operating in the West Philippine Sea, retained their services to represent them in a Writ of Kalikasan case. It turned out that the fishermen were not even aware that they were petitioners in the class suit, and that Palacios and Diokno were their lawyers.

Disbarment charges should have been filed by the IBP against Palacios and Diokno, but it stayed away from the issue, unlike what it did in the ouster of Sereno.

The job of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) is to interview applicants seeking a judicial appointment. Therefore, the JBC’s questions should be limited to the qualifications of the applicant.

The JBC has no business asking applicants personal questions (what peeves you?) and questions concerning controversial legal issues (what do you think of pre-marital sex?), like what they did when they were interviewing applicants for the post of chief justice last month.

The IBP representative in the JBC participates in the JBC interviews, and allows the interviews to be fora for irrelevant and impertinent questions, and an occasion to display in public the JBC’s power and influence over applicants for judicial posts.

Peralta was subjected by the JBC to that demeaning interview when he applied for the post of chief justice. He knows that the JBC interviews need a total overhaul.