It was an unusual instruction to give an evening law class, because rarely is attendance ever checked in these classes. These people are not undergraduates, you can give these guys a bit of slack. In fact, it’s not uncommon for a few students to come staggering into class as late as a half hour. Most professors, myself included, don’t even mind. If a student is unfaithful in attending class, he only punishes himself because nobody is going to bend bendwards for him so he can catch up with the rest of the class.
“We’re twenty-six, sir,” Miss Pinky Maglia Rosa reported, “and there’s probably 3 or 4 more that’s already in the building and running up the stairs right now.”
“Thank you, Miss Pinky, please remain standing. Can you recall for everyone’s benefit what we discussed in this class last Monday?”
“Uh…sir, we talked about the unconstitutional manner by which Vice-president Sara Duterte was trying to create a special police intelligence unit which was civilian in character and national in scope without the involvement of the National Police Commission, and you said this was extralegal, at best,” the young Fil-Italian mestiza recounted flawlessly.
“And can you characterize the manner in which your classmates behaved as I was discussing all that?” I asked next.
The girl hesitated, “Uh…I’m…I’m not really sure how to answer that question, sir. Can you be more specific?”
“Sure,” I said, “can you specifically describe the specific behavior in which your classmates who belong to this specific class specifically displayed as I discussed that specific topic?” Everyone laughed.
“I’m sure you have a point, sir,” Miss Pinky groused.
“Yes, I do. You see, no matter how specific I get, I really doubt that you would be able to recall very much about audience reaction if you were truly paying attention to the topic at hand. You might barely remember your own reaction, but you must remember what the lesson was. You see, class, in an event that involves delivering a message, the main thing IS the message. In fact, the only thing that really amounts to any importance is the message.”
“Why do I have a feeling this has something to do with the speech of President Marcos at the UN General Assembly recently, sir?” Miss Pinky twitted.
“Because you are a perceptive law student, Miss Pinky, and you have a Political Science bachelor’s degree. Don’t ask me how I know, I have this habit of stalking my students on Facebook,” I smirked.
“I do have a PoliSci background, sir.”
“Right. Then you can tell us what the other term for the ‘UN General Assembly’ is.”
“It’s also called the UN Plenary Body, sir.”
“And what does ‘plenary’ mean and how is that delegate grouping different from an ordinary ‘convened committee’?”
“Sir, the Plenary Body refers to the total membership of an organization, except only those whose membership standing is impaired or suspended. Any smaller grouping of delegates is a convened committee, or an ordinary committee.” Miss Pinky answered.
“Why--can the Plenary Body not function as a committee also?” I followed up.
“It can, sir. In fact, it is the only permanent committee, sir, that’s why it’s called the ‘Committee of One.’ It is all standing committees combined into One.”
“Now, let me go back to this class. You counted you are 26 tonight, were you 26 last Monday?” I asked.
“I have no idea, sir. We did not count off last Monday,” Miss Pinky answered.
“That’s right, there could have been more, there could have been less. There could have been some classmates of yours you were absent. Now to be fair, when I prepare the questions for your exam, should I be concerned that some people might not have been around and might not have heard our discussion last Monday, Miss Pinky?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not? Suppose Mr. Roberto Sigalot was late that day, wouldn’t he have a right to complain that he did not hear the topic, so he shouldn’t be expected to be able to answer well in the exam?”
“No, sir. He belongs to this class, and this class is a PLENARY body. He is a member and is expected to know what every other member knows. That means, he is assumed to understand everything we understood from your lecture, regardless whether he was present or not. All that matters is that the lecture was DELIVERED.” Miss Pinky reasoned.
“THE…LECTURE…WAS…DELIVERED,” I repeated it slowly.
“Take note, Omega Class of junior law students,” I began to talk sentimentally, “what you just learned is the very important but very mysterious legal concept called ‘CONSTRUCTIVE NOTICE.’ There are certain things in law that you are assumed to know, because you are expected to know it, EVEN IF YOU DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW IT. This is based on the assumption that the procedure to LET YOU KNOW was followed and it doesn’t really matter if you actually took advantage of that procedure. Do I make myself clear?”
My whole class shouted together, “NO, SIR!!!”
“Hahaha!” I couldn’t help laughing, “let me see if I can help you understand it better. Miss Ursula Bahag-hari, how many laws do we have in the Philippines?”
“Uh…sir, I think of latest count there are more than 10,200 Republic Acts, but all in all more than 38,950 individual permanent Philippine statutes if we include Presidential Decrees and other special laws.”
“That many, huh? Okay, now how many of these have you read?”
“Oh, my God! Sir! I could barely cover the 200 cases you assigned for our reading! I don’t know…maybe…ten? fifteen? Not very many, for sure,” Miss Ursula admitted.
“But are those laws effective ON YOU, or are you EXEMPTED from their coverage because you’ve never read them?” I asked.
“Oh, no, sir. I am covered by all of them and I cannot use ignorance as an excuse. Article 3 of the Civil Code states ‘ignorance of the law excuses no one from compliance therewith.”
“But is that fair, Miss Ursula? Why can’t you be excused if you are ignorant of the law?”
“Sir, because nobody is really ignorant of the law. The law is made known to all because all laws were promulgated, meaning they were published for everybody to take CONSTRUCTIVE NOTICE of.”
“There you go,” I said, “everybody has CONTRUCTIVE NOTICE of the law. You know class, Article 2 of your Civil Code is very clear—laws become final 15 days following the completion of their publication in the Official Gazette, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I have been a practicing lawyer for decades, and I am 59 now—I have never actually held a copy of the Official Gazette in my hands!”
My whole class gasped all together, they couldn’t believe what I just told them.
“But whether I have read the law or not, as long as it was published in the Official Gazette, I am PRESUMED to have read it, as much as each and every one of you. You never really have to read any particular law, until you actually need to know how it affects you. But when you do your research and you finally ACTUALLY read the law, then at that very moment that you read it for the first time, the legal fiction kicks in. You are now considered to have read it AS IF YOU ARE READING IT 15 DAYS AFTER ITS PUBLICATION in the Official Gazette, no matter if the law was published BEFORE YOU WERE EVEN BORN.”
My whole class goes, “Oooooohhhhh….!” And then they all start giggling, finding the legal fiction totally amusing.
“That’s not all,” I teased, “it is also assumed that you have UNDERSTOOD what the law means, even if you CAN’T EVEN READ. It’s up to you to inform yourself, do whatever you have to, the whole duty of the State is just to give CONSTRUCTIVE NOTICE of the law. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Sir, can we go back to how is this relevant to the President’s speech at the UN?” Miss Pinky reminded.
“Of course,” I put down my eyeglasses as I shifted topics, “I’m sure you’ve seen all those Facebook memes mocking the President because he was delivering his speech at the UN General Assembly when there were so many empty chairs—”
“Those were NOT empty chairs, sir,” Miss Pinky, the PoliSci graduate interrupted me.
“No, they were not. And the President was not addressing an empty hall, either. He was addressing the UN Plenary Body….take over for me, Miss Pinky.”
“Sir, the UN General Assembly Hall is the home of the Plenary body, and since Plenary means ‘ALL’ then any single individual in that hall actually embodies ALL of the UN delegates. Just like only 1,000 people are usually interviewed in a poll survey but their answer is assumed to reflect the opinion of 100 million voters because those 1,000 respondents are a representative sample of the plenary voting population,” the girl expounded
“But the memes said no one was even listening to the President while he was speaking, is that correct?” I followed up.
“Oh, my God, NO Sir! ALL Members of the UN General Assembly were not only listening, they heard and understood EVERY WORD of his message. His speech was a CONSTRUCTIVE NOTICE to the whole world. The records of the minutes of that Plenary Session will say, ‘Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. DELIVERED a message’ and every country in the entire international community will get a full transcript of that whole message, sir.” Miss Pinky explained.
“Wait, Miss Pinky, are you telling me that because the President SPOKE ON RECORD TO THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY. They were all actually constructively present?”
“Yes, sir. The President spoke before a FULL HOUSE.”
“A FULL HOUSE, Miss Pinky? With all those empty seats?”
“People who see the empty seats are BLIND TO THE LEGAL FICTION, sir. They don’t see the PLENARY BODY because they don’t even know the MEANING of ‘PLENARY!”
“Did you get that, class? So now you’ll understand why the following day, the French President Emmanuel Macron also delivered his speech in front of all those empty chairs—”
“Those chairs were NOT empty sir,” Miss Pinky reiterated.
“Right,” I said, “You now fully understand the twin concepts of CONSTRUCTIVE NOTICE and PLENARY REPRESENTATION. So from now on I don’t want any of you acting like ignoramuses out there and repeating what wrong ideas you see on Facebook posted by other ignoramuses, is that clear?” All my students nod.
“Yes, Miss Pinky, what is it? You forgot to say something?”
“I think the word is IGNORAMI, sir.”*
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