“AMICUS CURIAE” REMARKS FOR THE GENERALAW ABOGADOS CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION

By Judge Soliman M. Santos, Jr. (Retd.)

ONE BIG CONGRATULATIONS, GeneraLaw Abogados and boss LRG. Five generations of lawyers in 100 years of a law office of the Generals of Naga City is certainly a cause for celebration. It is no mean feat. Not even the biggest and most prominent Manila and Makati law firms have been able to achieve this. Nasaruan or more precisely nasanggatusan kan Naga.

Luis General, Jr. (1921-1997)

Of the five generations of the General legal family, I am not personally familiar with the icons of the first two generations, dae ko naman inabot sa law practice igdi satuya. The first generation lawyer was Eusebio Ras General who practiced in Albay and died in 1902. The little that I know about him is from the stories of his second-generation lawyer son Luis de la Fuente General (LFG), like the one about his father’s taking a complete bath only once a month but with the use of mallow flowers boiled in open air. Fortunately, this paternal tradition was not passed down to the following four generations.

We know more about the second-generation lawyer LFG because of his posthumously published autobiography written in Spanish and translated into English by the fifth generation General lawyer Jose Luis O. General or “Pepe” but with the Spanish title Confidencias Intimas (here “Exhibit A”). In the book, LFG wrote that he started his law office in April 1925 at the second floor of a residential building in Tabuco, Naga City. My Literature Professor wife Paz Verdades M. Santos or “Doods” and I, had a little hand in this book’s preparation, including our joint Introduction. Here we noted among others:

Carpio General & Jacob formed in 1987

Naga and Camarines Sur lawyers will find resonance in the book’s later chapter stories about the law practice and the judges of old, including some names familiar to them. The most interesting stories of LFG actually have to do with the judges in the court of first instance, now the RTC, such as Judge Pedro Tuason who once, when a case was called for trial, “was carrying his racket and was dressed to play tennis.” LFG wrote: “During those times, the judges behaved like petty tyrants in their respective courtrooms;” on the other hand, “clients still remunerated the lawyers [with] generous professional fees.” LFG seem to imply that it was no longer so in later years. How about these days of high prices on everything? Do the clients still remunerate the lawyers with generous professional fees? I think the answer is Yes from what I see now.

The fifth generation of General family lawyers

But that did not seem to be too much of a concern to the third generation General lawyer LFG’s son Luis General, Jr. (LG, Jr.) who was the first of the General lawyers whom I got to personally know. First as a family friend of my parents who were fellow UNC faculty members of his and his wife Maria Molina General in the early 1960s. Second as my favorite UNC Law Professor of the non-lucrative subjects Constitutional Law, Public International Law and Legal Ethics (no textbooks as the subject matter was “all in his head”) from 1978 to 1982. And third as a junior fellow human rights lawyer of his in the 1980s and early 1990s. His law office was then at the 2nd floor of the old and now gone Bello Bldg. in P. Burgos St.

LG, Jr. and his buddy, the late Atty. J. Antonio “Tony” M. Carpio, had two pioneering contributions to Camarines Sur and Bicol lawyering. First as the founding leaders of the IBP Camarines Sur Chapter in 1973; and second as the founding leaders of the Bikol chapter of the pioneer human rights lawyer group FLAG in 1974 during the early dark years of martial law which had seen them previously politically detained together in the old and now gone Camp Canuto in September 1972. It was my honor to have successful nominated them both together, “two-in-one,” for enshrinement in the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in 2023. Among the supporting papers for this was the UNC Press inaugural book Luis General, Jr. (1921-2021): A Centennial Memorial (here “Exhibit B”) that I compiled and edited during the pandemic year of 2021 when I happen to have had some slack time from my usually heavy RTC Naga court work.

The present-day GeneraLaw Abogados

The fourth generation of General family lawyering came with LG, Jr.’s two lawyer sons Luis Mario and Luis Ruben M. General (LRG), who were my law practice as well as human rights lawyering and cause-oriented advocacy contemporaries in Naga from 1983 to 1993. I of course remember well when they, together with Attys. J. Antonio “Boy” Z. Carpio, Jr. and Jaime S. Jacob, formed the law firm “Carpio General & Jacob” (that’s in alphabetical order) at the 5th floor of the old PNB Bldg. in Gen. Luna St. Yes, I remember them well because they were No. 2 to the Pardalis Law Office of which I was part of then. (Do I hear “Objection, Your Honor”?). Later on, in the transition from “Carpio General & Jacob” to “GeneraLaw Abogados,” I recall visiting one transitional office of theirs. I knew I needed eyeglasses when I misread a word in their shingle to be “Alligators” when it was actually “Litigators.” Joke only, I told LRG in our usual Nagueño kantiyawan (or amicus kantiyaw). When later I became a Judge and LRG would occasionally appear before me, it would always be my pleasure to be announcing the arrival of “the late” Atty. General – as our version of PAL or “Pañero Always Late.” Actually, we both were often guilty of that, with my own version of JAL or “Judge Always Late,” sorry.

And so, we have come to the fifth generation of General lawyers, four in all, but only one of whom is currently associated with GeneraLaw Abogados, namely Atty. Ma. Francina Louise O. General or “Aina,” but reinforced by other law associates led by Atty. Edizza Lynn D. Quides. In recent years, GeneraLaw Abogados is to be credited with certain landmark litigation resulting in significant RTC Naga Decisions. One is the Branch 21 Decision which declared unconstitutional certain provisions of the pandemic-time Naga City eSalvar Ordinance due to personal liberty and data privacy reasons.

Another is the Branch 27 Decision nullifying as illegal the Special Tree Cutting Permits for road-widening in Naga and ordering the concerned DPWH and DENR officials to pay the value of the trees cut amounting to over P753,000, while issuing a writ of continuing mandamus that among others created an Environmental Rehabilitation Committee. Kudos to its ponente, retired Judge Leo Intia, who is here. By the way, I believe he has his own emergent “IntiaLaw Abogados” of three generations, presumably inspired by GeneraLaw Abogados.

LRG once referred to some of my own Branch 61decisions on the merits such as these ones (but not my decisions based on compromise) as “gems of local jurisprudence.” The term “jurisprudence” is normally reserved for Supreme Court decisions but, just from reading the news, one can glean that there are many significant decisions at the lower trial court levels of the RTC and even the MTC that could contribute as “part of the legal system of the Philippines,” as part of the best that has been created by the judiciary. But this judicial activism starts with bold, daring and innovative litigation from activist litigators like GeneraLaw Abogados.

It may be time sooner rather than later for the key experiences, lessons and insights from 100 years of provincial lawyering by GeneraLaw Abogados since 1925 be put into another book (for now, just my reserved “Exhibit C”). This in itself would be a bold, daring and innovative contribution to Philippine legal history that is not Manila-centric or even Supreme Court-centric. Pepe, Aina, Jose Martin and Reuben Carlo or “Ninoy” have this task cut out for them, not just “the continuance of the law office” but the putting together of its history, much of which is already documented.

Before ending and before I forget, while there once were “night courts” in Manila for urgent cases, and before that even happens in Naga, LRG has innovated law office operations with what may be called his “night law office extension” I think in M Plaza, Diversion Road with totally different law “officemates” there, including retired fiscals, like Mansueto Saez here. Presumably, LRG drew strength and wisdom for his next morning’s court hearings from the spirits imbibed in that “night law office extension” with a different kind of “bar operations.” I would therefore now like to gift LRG for this his celebration with this Irish-inspired green cap (here “Exhibit D”) that reads in front “GENIUS when drinking” and with a bottle opener embedded on one side of its visor. Cheers, padi!

And so, in ending, may I propose a toast to GeneraLaw Abogados. As we raise our wine glasses, here’s to 100 years not of solitude but of solicitude in lawyering in the grand promdi manner. In the Naga spirit of the Peñafrancia fiesta, Viva GeneraLaw Abogados! Viva GeneraLaw Abogados! Viva GeneraLaw Abogados! VIVA!!! Dios mabalos.

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SOLIMAN M. SANTOS, JR. is a retired Judge of the RTC of Naga City Branch 61 (2016-22) and of the 9th MCTC of Nabua-Bato, Camarines Sur (2010-15). He has been a member of the IBP Camarines Sur Chapter since 1983. He is a long-time human rights and international humanitarian lawyer; legislative consultant and legal scholar; and author of a number of books, including a trilogy on his court work and practice: Justice of the Peace: The Work of a First-Level Court Judge in the Rinconada District of Camarines Sur (2015), Drug Cases: A Naga Court’s Practice and Reform Advocacy (2022), and Judicial Activist: The Work of a Judge in the RTC of Naga City (2023), all published by the lawbook publisher Central Books, Inc., Quezon City.