IBP-AFP MOA Signing Speech
Feb. 27, 2007

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

I sign today the Memorandum of Agreement with the Department of National Defense (DND) on behalf of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines with a sense both of pride and humility.

Pride, because this covenant enables the Filipino lawyer to stand closer alongside his brother-soldier. And as he does so, he is able to offer a hand of friendship and assurance to his compatriot who faces the daily dangers with which every battlefront is fraught.

Humility, because to stand alongside a brother-soldier is to stand beside one who gives all for Flag and Country, with hardly a thought of oneself. With hardly a consideration of fear.

Some would find it strange for a lawyer and a soldier to stand in partnership. Soldiers and lawyers, they say, make the strangest of bedfellows. This perhaps is the trigger behind the expletive of the American soldier-statesman Theodore Roosevelt who blurted out, “I want to see you shoot the way you shout”.

Was Teddy Roosevelt perhaps referring to the difference between a lawyer and a soldier? That when faced with the enemy, soldiers shoot and lawyers shout?
Regardless of the world of difference, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines extends its hand of camaraderie today to the Filipino soldier. We do so as we are reminded that there are Filipinos who sacrifice their comfort and safety so that the rest of us may enjoy comfort and safety in our daily grind.

We do so in recognition for that single most important aspiration and commitment that every lawyer shares with every soldier and which is eloquently enshrined in your Code of Conduct: the support and defense of the Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.

We do so in affirmation of your timeless mission to safeguard our ramparts; and in fidelity to our own mission – to ensure that every Filipino obtains his fair share of justice no matter where he is stationed in life.

In so doing, we hope to learn from our brother-soldiers, and to be inspired by them.

For, we do know this: that to understand heroism and love of Country, we need not look at the books of history.

We need only to look at the face of a Filipino soldier.

We shall always be grateful for this privilege.

On behalf of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, may I convey this commitment to the our esteemed DND Secretary, the Honorable Hermogenes Ebdane, Jr.: to serve our brother-soldiers to the best we can.

Maraming salamat.

Mabuhay ang Kawal Pilipino!