The post below is a chronicle of, and reflection on, the one week or so when I attended the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law and how the events leading up to and after that week changed the trajectory of my life forever. There will also be some tidbits/admissions that will cast me in a somewhat unflattering light. It will be rather long, but I think there will be something helpful/insightful for anyone who manages to read it through to the end.
Note: This post requires my (reasonable) best efforts attempt at remembering events and conversations that transpired way back in 1999 to the best of my ability. In most cases, I have paraphrased the conversations to the best of my recollection. Due to the passage of time and my advancing age, many of the events and conversations I describe may not be reflected completely accurately.
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“Mr. Manalo, if you want to be successful here, you are going to have to find a way to compromise with regards to your Sabbath observance. Why don’t you just ask your minister for dispensation over the period you will be studying here? I’m sure your God will understand.”
When I heard those words, I knew that my life was probably about to take a drastic turn and that everything I had been working for and all the preparation I had been making in the past ten or so years leading up to that hour were likely about to become inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.
There I was, at the head of a long conference table in one of rooms housed in the august Malcolm Hall building, flanked on either side by five of the sharpest legal minds in the entire country, at a key moment in my life, simultaneously looking back at the last ten years of my life and trying my best to look past the next half hour to try and catch a glimpse of the rest of my life.
Only a few weeks earlier, I had found myself soaring on Cloud 9 after stepping out of the College Secretary’s office (it might have been another office, I don’t really recall at this time) having been informed of my performance in the Law Aptitude Examination (LAE). “Congratulations, Mr. Manalo, you topped the LAE. You were no. 1,” I had been told a few moments earlier.
For context, back then (I’m not sure if it’s still the same today), if you wanted to attend law school in the Philippines, you had to take an “entrance examination” at each individual law school to which you were applying (unlike here in the US, where you only need take the LSAT and your LSAT score can be used to apply to all the law schools in the country). For the UP College of Law, that entrance exam was (still is?) the LAE. It is administered in March each year in each of the UP campuses across the Philippines. All applicants to the UP College of Law are required to take the LAE. I won’t bore you with more details about this test (feel free to Google if you’re curious to know more). The LAE is very similar to the LSAT, except it had no Logic Games section (that @#$% Logic Game about mulch cost me a few points on the LSAT and kept me out of Harvard; and now I learn that they are actually getting rid of the Logic Games section starting in August 2024).
For even more context, up until I was around 11 years old, my plan was to become a medical doctor (big surprise for someone from a Filipino family, right?). Then, in biology class one day, we each were given a live frog and were told to dip a piece of cloth in ammonia, put the ammonia-soaked cloth over our respective frog’s nostrils, wait until it lost consciousness, and then make an incision right down the middle of its chest with the surgical blade we held in our hands. As I was staring aghast at the still beating heart of my Kermit after I had sliced its chest open several minutes later, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I was never, ever going to be a medical doctor. Ever. No way. No how.
Lawyer was the second option on my list of future careers (again, big surprise, correct?). When we were kids, my dad often told me and my siblings that he had always wanted to be a lawyer but that God had other plans for him and had called him to the ministry. We could always tell that dad’s lawyer dream never got completely extinguished. At our dinner table my dad would often instigate debates and lively discussions (much to mom’s chagrin — she would plead with all of us to just eat in peace) and would constantly challenge our critical thinking. One memory that is still quite vivid in my mind is that he would often ask me to show him where his face was. I would point in the general direction of his nose, and he would then say “that’s my nose.” I would point in the direction of his mouth, and he would say “that’s my mouth.” I would make a circular motion around his entire face, but then he would say “that’s my forehead” or “that’s my cheek” or “that’s my chin” depending on where my fingers would be pointing at any given time. Dad and I would often sit on the couch on certain evenings and watch episodes of Matlock, Perry Mason or LA Law. I remember being in awe whenever I watched the lawyers deliver their closing arguments. “That,” I remember thinking to myself, “is what I want to do when I grow up” (now that I wasn’t going to be a doctor anymore).
In high school, my interest in, and seeming adeptness at, the art of argumentation and persuasion, served me in good stead on numerous occasions. I was something of a troublemaker back then. I always read my textbooks well in advance, sometimes months in advance of the scheduled plan and somehow always found myself restless and bored in class. As such, I constantly needed to find other ways to pass the time. Unfortunately, these other ways often involved instigating fights between my friends/classmates or some other similar mischief (the “smartest” of my teachers figured out that the best way to handle me was to send me out of class — either to the library to read books and submit a book report at the end of the week, or to the tennis courts that were adjacent to our classrooms). So I was a frequent guest to the Guidance/Principal’s office, together with whoever the unfortunate folks were that I had managed to get into trouble that day. Much to my friends’ frustration, I almost always managed to talk my way out of any punishment while they were made to bear the brunt of it. In any event, anyone who knew me well enough would always tell me that I would make a great lawyer someday, should I choose to pursue that career (regardless of whether they were being sincere or sarcastic, their comments helped solidify my decision to pursue a career in the legal profession).
When I was around 13, I was asked by one of my teachers to write and submit an entry for a national essay-writing contest. A few months later, I was pleasantly surprised when I was informed that I had won, and that I was to travel to Manila to receive my award. Mom and I went together. During the awarding ceremony, I had the privilege of receiving my award from a gentlemen by the name of Blas Ople. I remember being impressed by how kind he looked and actually was. I remember him telling me as he handed me my medal “Young man, you and other young men and women like you are the future of our country. Study hard, work hard and do the best that you can so that someday you can be among those at the forefront of leading this country to new heights.”
When I got back to Cavite (where AUP was located), I did some research on Mr. Ople and learned that he was then one of the country’s senators (if you grew up in AUP during those years, you would know and understand how secluded we were from the rest of the country at large and how many times we were not in on current events), and that prior to that he had a distinguished public service record, including serving as the Labor Secretary. Senator Ople’s words really resonated with me. From that time on, I mapped a different course for my life. I was going to become a public servant like the esteemed Senator. Perhaps, I would even become a Senator myself.
Thus was the plan laid out. I would finish high school, take the UP College Admission Test (UPCAT), take up Political Science at UP and then go on to the UP College of Law. In the Philippines, unless you are already the scion of a political family/dynasty, are well-connected, or are an actor/actress or athlete with no previous public service experience whatsoever (@#$%$), if you wanted to become a ranking public servant or politician, you wanted to make sure you graduated from one of UP, Ateneo or San Beda. At these schools, you would presumably get the training, branding and, most importantly, network and other connections you needed to be able to jumpstart and/or sustain a career in the public field.
For me, it was always going to be UP. (Even when I was applying for law school, I only applied to UP. No other school. Harvard was my ultimate dream law school, but never in a million years back then did it ever occur to me that I would ever leave the Philippines for any reason. I was going to serve my home country and that was it.)
Except when I was in my senior year in high school and I told my parents about my plan to take up PolSci at UP after graduating from my school, my dad emphatically said “absolutely not.” It was not a slight against UP in any way, shape or form. Both dad and mom obtained their PhD’s/EdD’s from UP. Rather, dad felt that at the time, I was not yet ready to be exposed to the more “radical” ideas and ideologies pervasive in at UP. “Stay at AUP for college,” he said. After you graduate, then you can go to UP for law school. And so, that is how I ended up staying 4 more years at AUP. At the time (not sure about now), AUP did not offer any PolSci degree. After considering all my options and assessing which one made the most sense considering my future plans, I chose to take up Accountancy (I didn’t know it back then — sometimes i still begrudged my dad for not letting me go to UP for college – but it was a decision that turned out to be the absolute correct one).
Fast forward back to the panel interview.
So there I was, at the head of a long conference table in one of rooms housed in the august Malcolm Hall building, flanked on either side by five of the sharpest legal minds in the entire country. All Professors at arguably the premiere law school in the nation, accomplished practitioners/scholars, legal luminaries and prolific authors all. It was around thirty minutes into the intense panel interview (the goal of the interview was to ascertain whether a potential candidate for admission to the law school had the wherewithal to successfully complete rigorous education and training over a four-year period while competing against some of the best and brightest minds in the nation, and the panel took that goal to heart) when the matter of my religion came up. It was completely unavoidable, really, since the moment they dove into my candidate file and got to my college transcript, the word “Adventist” (I graduated from Adventist University of the Philippines) was right there front and center.
Panelist 1: “Are you an Adventist?”
Me: “Yes, ma’am, I am.”
Panelist 2: “I know about Adventists. Does that mean you go to church on Saturdays? Additionally, isn’t it true that you are not allowed to engage in normal activities for the duration of that day?”
Me: “Yes, sir, that is correct. However, one clarification: the duration of the Sabbath that we observe is actually from sunset Friday through sunset Saturday. Once the sun sets on Saturday, we are free to resume our normal day-to-day activities.”
Panelist 3: “Here at the College of Law, there will sometimes be examinations scheduled on Saturdays. Later on if you make it to subsequent years, mock courts and similar activities, which are mandatory activities, will typically be scheduled on Saturdays. Are you going to be able to sit for said examinations and participate in the mock courts?”
Me: “Unfortunately not, sir. I am going to have to make arrangements with my applicable professors to be able to sit for the examinations on another day.”
Panelist 3: “And how about the mock courts? You know there will be other participants involved and we cannot ask all of them to rearrange their schedules just to accommodate you. Some of the guest judges are going to be leading practitioners who are very busy people. You cannot possibly expect them to move their hectic schedules around just for you, can you?”
Former Dean Pacifico Agabin: “It can be done.” (I will always remember Dean Agabin very fondly as he was the only one who advocated for me during that fateful panel interview. Dean Agabin was the immediately previous dean of the College of Law at the time of my candidacy for admission.)
Panelist 4: “I really don’t see how it’s possible.”
Dean Agabin: “It can be done.”
Panelist 1: “Mr. Manalo, if you want to be successful here, you are going to have to find a way to compromise with regards to your Sabbath observance. Why don’t you just ask your minister for dispensation over the period you will be studying here? I’m sure your God will understand. We will end this interview now. You have a decision to make and you will have a few weeks to mull it over while we finish interviewing the other candidates. Let us know once you’ve decided. I just want to remind you that out of thousands of applicants we get each year, only 400 or so are accepted and one of those spots is yours if you want it. I hope you make the right choice.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
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