Both my parents went to law school but did not pursue legal careers. My grandfather — my mother’s father — discouraged her from becoming a lawyer because “it’s not a career for women.” My father, a great debater, would have made a good lawyer but abandoned it for unknown reasons. So, of course, they passed and pushed that unrealized dream on their daughter.
I was almost convinced being a lawyer was something I could be. Until I worked at the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1990, fresh out of college. My uncle, then the Undersecretary of Justice (in charge of prosecution and investigation), asked me to help DOJ’s Public Affairs Office. I later became the executive assistant to the Justice Secretary.
At DOJ, I witnessed first hand how the legal system is used as weapon by those in power. That’s where I knew for sure that what is legal is not necessarily just. And so I abandoned the lawyer track (and just “illegally” married one, haha).
Lately, the phrase “rule of law” has been thrown around like we’re supposed to feel safe. Like there’s this big, fair system out there that protects the common tao. But if you’ve been living in the Philippines long enough, you know that’s not at all the case.
The law isn’t this magical shield that protects the poor and the weak. In fact, it is a sword. And too often, it’s been used as a weapon to keep the powerful in power and the poor, well, exactly where they are.
Since we were colonized, the law was never really ours. When the Spanish came, they brought the Regalian doctrine — the idea that the king owned everything. Indigenous concepts of stewardship and community land ownership? Wiped out. The Spanish king was declared owner of everything (sa kanya all) of value in the colonies, and that concept was imposed on the people. Imagine being told that the land your ancestors have lived on for centuries suddenly belongs to some guy across the ocean because he said so. That’s not justice. That’s conquest.
Then came the Americans, the “benevolent brother” who brought “democracy.” But they didn’t fix anything. They just repackaged it. They gave us a shiny new constitution and a land registration system designed to kick indigenous peoples off their land and hand it over to the rich families who could afford lawyers. The colonial constitution, premised on the idea of Filipino incapacity to govern, weakened the safeguards that shielded liberty from power. In other words, the Americans set up a system that looked democratic but was designed to keep us in check.
Fast forward to today. We are independent on paper, but we’re still playing by the rules our colonizers set. The same elite families who got rich under the Americans? They’re still here. They just traded their Spanish last names for political dynasties.
When Ferdinand Edralin Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972, he did not just send the military out. He systematically destroyed the legal system. They arrested senators, journalists, workers, farmers, and students — thousands of them — without any charges. No trials. No due process.
And the Supreme Court? Intimidated into submission. The Court eventually ruled that martial law was a “political question” beyond its jurisdiction. Translation: “We could stop this, but we won’t.” As one legal scholar put it, the Supreme Court did not merely allow an encroachment upon people’s rights, it encouraged further violations. The judiciary, the one institution that was supposed to protect us, became an accomplice.
And when the People Power at EDSA happened in 1986, a revolutionary government was installed. We drafted a new Constitution that looked better. But the same elite families? Still there. The same structures? Still intact. We changed the players, but kept playing the same game.
Under a capitalist system, the law is a game with loopholes for the rich, but handcuffs for the poor. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law was supposed to give land to the landless. Sounds great, except the law was drafted by legislators who were themselves landed elites. It was full of loopholes — vague procedures, unclear guidelines — that favored corporate agribusinesses and large landowners. Landowners challenged program inclusion, land valuation, and beneficiary identification, delaying agrarian justice for years.
One study found that the Supreme Court was actually impeding the agrarian reform program by acting as agent of commerce and industry instead of ruling in favor of farmers. The law wasn’t broken. It was working exactly as designed. For the elite.
Then there are local dynasties. The 1987 Constitution prohibits political dynasties, but Congress — populated by dynasties — has never passed an enabling law. Political monopoly impacts access to justice because if dynasties control localities, they often influence who becomes prosecutors, judges, and police. The law becomes a family business.
And let’s not forget patriarchy and how the law loves men more. Our Family Code contains discriminatory provisions that restrict women’s rights. The Code literally treats women like minors in some cases. We have different penalties for adultery versus concubinage — men get a slap on the wrist while women get jail time. Abortion is totally criminalized, even if the mother’s life is at risk. Divorce? Still illegal, thanks to the non-practice of the separation of church and state.
The law says it protects everyone. But if you are a woman, it protects you a little less.
So we have to stop treating the legal system like this holy, untouchable thing. We need to stop pretending that the law is some neutral, objective force for good. It’s not. It’s a machine built by colonizers, captured by elites, and continues to serve the powerful at the expense of the rest of us.
But here’s the thing about machines and systems — they can be dismantled.
Former Senator Jose W. Diokno once said that Philippine history is a “continuous and continuing struggle to create a just society.” That struggle isn’t over. It’s still happening right now.
The question is: are we going to be part of changing it? Or are we going to keep believing that the law will save us, while it keeps doing exactly what it was designed to do?
The new generation of Filipinos has the power to demand something different. Not just reform, but transformation. Not just new laws, but a new relationship with the law itself. One where justice isn’t just a word in the Constitution, but something that actually works for all of us. Not just the powerful, the rich, and the men. Sana all.
Because at the end of the day, the law is made by people. If it is made, it can also be unmade and changed by the people. But first, we have to see it for what it really is. It is a rigged legal system and we must stop expecting it to play fair.
