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Non-negotiables and Character Building

February 21, 2013by Neil Eustaquiosubmitted toAtty. Marco Sardillo

A Reaction to Passion for Justice by Justice Pompeyo Diaz

I am here to celebrate the successful ending of my course in law. I am here so thatyou may send me on my way to practice the law and earn money to spend for acomfortable lifestyle. I am here for you to send me on my way to bear the name of

Ateneo throughout my life so I can use it to get respect I have not earned and access

to places of power.

Though the words in the previous paragraph are precisely those which Justice Diazhoped were not in the minds of Ateneo Law students as they graduate, these wordsseem more real to many than those words Justice Diaz used in his speech entitledPassion for Justice.

Life is different for each student. The cards that reality deals are varied for everyperson. Some may be called to the bench or bar, others to business, to other modes

of the practice of law, or otherwise. To date, I still am not sure as to which I amcalled; but I find this fact immaterial. Whether by action or inaction, deliberate orotherwise, the student will have to react to whatever cards life may deal. What lifepresents cannot be ignored. I believe that a person cannot decide unilaterally how hislife is going to tread out and expect that all will be as he chose. I have learned this

when I planned my life during college to a good level of detail. In retrospect, I havefound that more than 80% of those plans are not on track, not because of a lack of

passion to pursue it, but because reality is better understood. A person gets a bettergrasp or knowledge of reality over time. Reality cannot be ignored. Life happens,

cards are dealt, and the person has to deal with it. Thus, I have ceased from makinggrand plans, but have come to pursuing learning more about reality.

But in learning more about this reality, I found that it is not the cards that reality dealsthat define a person, by the quality of his response. These responses build what is

known as a persons character. To build character, a person must be guided by amoral compass. And since character-building is a life-long process, the compass hasto be durable.

A moral compass is one of the most important tools in life, but one not found in allstudents.1 In a Constitutional Law I class conducted by Atty. Chochoy Medina, hepassionately shared that the end goal of a lawyer in practice should always be

Justice. If it is not Justice, then we have a problem. Justice Diaz shared (a) how hismoral compass keeps him in the right direction: Justice is to render to each manwhat is his due; and (b) the quantum of desire that pushes him to tread that

direction: Let Justice be done, though the heavens fall!

This principle of Justice is easier said than done. It must be coupled with a passion toconsistently choose Justice. Admittedly, I am finding it hard to find the passion tochoose Justice. Maybe the cards dealt in my life may yet not have been those thatcall for a passion for Justice. My life in the practice is still young. The cards may be

just about to be dealt. What I believe is important is that I have moral compass and

the passion to respond to it.

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Justice Diaz attests to this when he shares his experience with self-serving men.

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My own moral compass has been a definition of maturity shared to me by a young

professor2, i.e., maturity is said to exist in a person when there is the concurrence ofself-knowledge, self-control, and self-giving.3 Among the three, the last is mostimportant.4 And the words of passion that has always stirred me in times of despair

have been: Don't let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with thelight of your faith and of your love.5 With a moral compass, and a passion to pushme through, I have no fear of the cards to be dealt to me by reality. I know that solong as I respond with actions that are filled with fruitful care for others, I know I willhave responded in a manner that builds my character.

I do not know what life will deal me in the practice of law, but I hope that I would be

able to respond in a manner I will not regret in my later days.

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Dr. Fernando Lukban of the University of Asia and the Pacific.3

I understood the first and second to be a requisite in order to act in a manner that exudes

the last.4See 1 Corinthians 13.

5SAINT JOSEMARIA ESCRIVA,THE WAY 1 (1st Ed., 1985).