he thing I hate most about the START of a semester is that the school registrar usually hasn’t got the room assignments down pat yet. You get juggled between room assignments—bigger classes get the larger rooms in the middle of the halls, smaller sections get the corner ones. I stuck my head in three classrooms in search of my “Constitutional Law II” class before I found them way out in the North Pole.
“Consti Two?” I asked as I stepped into the fourth room, although I was already half certain because I saw the familiar bespectacled Miss Ursula Bahag-hari.
“Omega Section, sir!” they chorused back.
“Ahhh, there you are!” I settled in, laying down my briefcase on the professor’s table. I also had a small ecobag with me with some “class props” I intended to use for the evening’s lecture.
The college had a “dress code” for teachers, which was no big deal for us lawyers. Classes were usually held in the evening from 5:30 p.m. till about 9:30 p.m. We would be coming from a whole day’s work already, still clad in our courtroom attire—barong Tagalog, for the most part, or a slick “Americana” if you fancied yourself as Perry Mason.
I was wearing a barong Tagalog variant which is enjoying quite a boost these days (President Bongbong Marcos, Jr. has been wearing it daily) called a “gusot mayaman.”
It’s made of this wonderful fabric locally known as piña. Quite pricey, it starts out crisply ironed flat but as you move around during the day, it starts to collect these creases in places where you bend a lot. The more creases you put into the barong the “busier” you seemed to look. The lawyers’ term for it is “Gusot-chi”-- obviously a word play on ‘Gucci’ and more or less approximating its PRICE, too. Me, I just like the gusot mayaman because I can be “un-neat” all day long without having to apologize for anything.
Anyway, I dove right into my lecture. “Alright, class, last time I asked you to read the first ten chapters---”
“First ten CASES sir!!!” my class panicked. The tenth chapter was the end part of the book and they obviously have only read the Introduction yet.
“Riiight. I stand corrected,” I said as I heard them heave a collective sigh of relief.
“Well, if you REALLY read those first ten cases, then you’d know they all tackled the qualities of a good written constitution. Your constitution is your highest law of the land, against which all other laws must be contrasted for compliance. That’s why to be able to compare with ALL other laws, a good constitution must be broad, brief and definite,” I essayed.
“Leave some for us, sir” Miss Ursula Bahag-hari yipped.
“I’m sorry—what’s that, Miss Ursula?”
“We prepared for recitation, sir, but you’re delivering all the answers we are ready with already. You might get too deep into the parts we haven’t read!” Miss Bahag-hari said, eliciting a tickled chuckle from her classmates.
“Oh, I’ll leave plenty for you,” I said, then I reached for my ecobag and put on two pieces of “class props” I had prepared for the lecture. “Give me a minute here…”
My class watched me with unbelieving eyes as I donned this immaculate-white cooking apron and a largish chef’s hat, the kind that billowed out like a big turban on top of your head. I could hear murmurs.
“I heard from his Alpha Class last semester he could be a little weird,” Miss Ursula whispered to her seatmate, “but cosplay??”
I turned around and faced my class, looking like I was about to host the “The Iron Chef” cooking series on reality TV. Then clearing my throat, I spoke with my best Gordon Ramsay impression, “Well, what do you think, Miss Ursula?”
“Sir? …oh, uhhh…the apron is totally you, sir, but the chef’s hat is little bit of an acquired taste,” the girl said.
“I didn’t mean the costume,” I growled, “I meant what did you think of the book’s discussion about the constitution being a fundamental document. Give me a case where the Supreme Court described the constitution…”
“Oh, yes, sir. The constitution is a collection of general principles and broad policies that act like a mold. The legislature is supposed to craft other laws that deal with specific subjects and they are good so long as they conform to the constitutional mold…uh..Javellana versus—”
“Never mind the case citations, Miss Ursula,” I said. “What’s important for you to understand, class, is that the Constitution is like a compilation of elements, sort of like a chef’s kitchen. It’s full of ingredients—meat, vegetables, potatoes, tomatoes, green and red pepper, onions, garlic, salt, a little wine maybe, and the chef—”
“That’s you?” Miss Ursula butted in.
“—the chef takes these ingredients and washes them, peels them, cuts them up, mixes them together in a pot and puts it on top of fire. And then he gives it some time to boil, cook and simmer, and then takes it out of the fire, serves it up as a meal for the people living in the house. Some people love it, some hate it. But whatever people’s opinions are about the MEAL, they always either love or blame the ingredients or the chef. Do you get what I’m trying to say?”
One hand shot up from the back row, a young man wearing a red scarf for some reason.
“And you are?”
“Roberto Sigalot, sir, I’m a transferee from the University of—”
“I’m not interested what school you came from,” I interrupted, “I do want to know what place you came from.”
“I’m originally from Mindoro Oriental, sir.”
“You SWAM to the Gulf of Lingayen and took the bus to Baguio?” the whole class burst out in guffaws.
“No, sir, my parents own a condo unit here in Baguio that nobody stays in, so I volunteered.”
“Riiight. I mean, staying in a nice condo, what better SIDELINE activity could there be than going to law school?” The class was roaring in laughter now. But none of the girls stomped their feet or rolled their eyes. Gosh, I miss Miss Deema.
“So, Roberto, if things suck on a daily basis in this country, is it right to blame the constitution, just because everything is operating under its principles?”
“No, sir. If things don’t work out because of a bad law, it’s always possible to amend or repeal that bad law and make a better one. Just like you said, using the same ingredients, a chef can always change the composition, adjust the mixture, adjust the flame, adjust the time, and come up with another meal. What’s important is without having to change any of the ingredients, the chef can actually cook ANY MEAL,” Mr. Sigalot explained.
“That IS great, Roberto,” I acknowledged, “class, your constitution is NOT a solution to any problem. It is a TOOLBOX for tackling any problem. People are poor? Come up with an employment program, making sure workers are paid their just wages and given security of tenure--because employment is property, and you cannot deprive anyone of property without due process of law, just like the constitution says. Can you give another application, Roberto?”
“Well, sir…uh…traffiic is horrible…then, uh, try to limit the number of cars by imposing an import tariff and a road-users tax, both of which are heavier burdens on the rich, which is okay because taxation should be progressive and proportional, meaning those with more in life should pay more in taxes, like the constitution suggests.” Mr. Sigalot added. I could tell already that maybe this semester my sharpest student would be MALE, for a change.
“I think you’re all getting the hang of this,” I said, pacing around the room in my “costume.”
“A constitution offers an infinite range of configurations of society and government. We can tweak our ‘cooking’ any way we like but if we start throwing away ingredients or having more of just one kind of ingredient, we can end up with nothing but porridge all year long. And we’d wish we had never thrown some of those ingredients away. So we better stop this wanting to change our constitution every time our smaller laws go bad, or one government program blows up, or somebody wants to BE the chef when it’s not his turn to cook,” my Omega Class kept nodding their heads in agreement—and comprehension, I hoped.
“So for next meeting, I want us to go through the Declaration of Principles and State Policies and go through some of those meat and pototoes and stuff, so read the next ten chapters again---”
“CASES, sir!!!” they all chorused.
“Riiight. Next ten CASES. Class dismissed,” I said.
Miss Ursula Bahag-hari caught up with me on the hallway, “Nice chef’s hat, sir, can I have it na lang?”
“It’s just made of cartolina, Miss Ursula,” I said as I took it off.
“I know, sir, can I have it just the same? I’ll keep it on my study desk as a motivating conversation piece with my dorm mates, to keep me going the rest of law school. Please?”
“Well, in that case, here---help yourself,” and I gave the girl the crumpled hat that now resembled gusot mayaman.*
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