MY father sent himself to school while already working at the Philippine Air Force at Basa Air Base in Pampanga. First, he took a degree in political science at a college 20 kilometers away. I remembered my childhood as if it had just happened today.
After working from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., my father would go home and change into civilian clothes. He would then commute by jeepney to his college, every day, for four years until he got that political science degree. Not yet happy with that, he also enrolled in law school, and it was another four years of studying and commuting.
He later stayed at a boarding house in Sampaloc, Manila, to review for the bar exams. I remember one day when my grandmother and I visited him there.
I immediately recognized the green-and-red blanket that he had used as a bedsheet for his bed. He stayed on the lower part of a bed made of two bunks, four bunks in a room.
I remembered my father reading mostly on weekends. We would all be asleep when he reached home at 9 p.m. I think he would have been too tired to study by then, so I guess he did most of his reading during lunch breaks from work, or during weekends. He also told me that during the days of the bar exams, the professors of the rich students at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law would even walk their students to the classrooms where the exams would be held. It was part of their bar operations to motivate their students to do well. And they usually did.
After my graduation from Ateneo de Manila University, my father wanted me to take up law. I said, please allow me to work for a year in this office where I would have a great editor and a great writer as bosses. I want to learn from them.
So, I worked for one year as a writer, with Arnold Moss as my editor and the great Juan T. Gatbonton as our boss. I wrote speeches, as well as articles for The Philippines Today Handbook, and Archipelago magazine. When there was no writing to be done, we were free to read the many books that were found in the office. Among them were the books of Ernest Hemingway and Robert Graves, as well as biographies of mostly American writers.
I finished my one year of editorial apprenticeship and took the law aptitude exam at the University of the Philippines. It was the only university where I applied, since it was in Quezon City, where I lived, and the tuition fees were affordable. The exam consisted mostly of English grammar, sentence patterns and reading comprehension. There were around 50 items in math and a token set of questions in Filipino. And there was also an essay portion, to which I dove like fish to water.
But I didn’t want to go to law school. What I wanted was to take my MA in English literature at Ateneo, then proceed to take my PhD in creative writing in the United States. I told this to my father, and to my surprise, he said just take the exam and let’s see what will happen.
I passed the exam, but I drafted a letter asking the dean of the UP law school to give my slot to another applicant. There were almost 10,000 applicants, and only 200 passed. The interview would whittle that down to around 120, to make up four sections of Batch 1984-1988 of the UP College of Law.
Letter in hand, I went to the UP College of Law. But the snooty secretary swatted me by saying, “Well, if you did not pass the entrance exam, we don’t consider appeals.” I told her I did pass the exam, but I would give up my slot.
Snooty Secretary looked for my name in her list. I saw her read the last page first, presuming I did badly in the LAE. Then, I saw her eyes going up, her right hand flipping a page, her eyes going up, then her right hand flipping a page. Then her eyes stopped on the top of page one.
She looked at me, her eyes wide and surprised: “Please take your law studies here in UP. Don’t go to Ateneo Law School anymore. You got a score of _____, and you’re number _____ in our entrance exam.”
I just smiled at her, handed her my letter, and said I’d take up graduate studies instead.
Thirty years later, I did return to law school, not at UP but at a university in Manila. I took the LRT train every Saturday and Sunday morning for what’s billed as the executive class, for those who worked full time but were willing to give up their weekends to study.
Law school was like a basin of cold water thrown in my face. I understood what I read, but I had to read them at least twice. Then I read the codals, after that, the cases, and then I’d read the law book again. My professor in Criminal Law 1 and 2 was a regional trial court judge, one of the best in the West, as we’d put it when he was out of earshot. He would bring a small piece of luggage to class, which contained our test papers that he had marked in meticulous fashion.
At home, I remember reading, then resting with the thick law book on my lap — and waking up the next morning, with all the lights on. I didn’t watch a movie for years, skipped meeting with friends, and just read all the required books, as well as those that were just recommended.
I was intent on finishing my law studies, even if I had eye strain and some professors scared us. But one day, I got a job offer to work at the United Nations Development Program, mostly based in the Philippines but with occasional travel to Asia. It paid very well, and it was the United Nations! One of my dreams as a young boy was to work at the UN.
So, after two years, I took a leave from law school. After the UN, I got work as head of research at TV 5, where I also hosted a daily TV show and a daily radio show. I was never able to go back to law school anymore.
These memories came back as I was watching the brilliant Atty. Amando Virgil Ligutan for the prosecution and the fumbling OJT boys of the defense in the impeachment case of Vice President Sara Duterte.
If my poor father had half of the chances given to the Ateneo boys in the defense team, I’m sure he’d have done better, with his native intelligence and singular wit.
Danton Remoto’s books are available at Fully Booked, National Bookstore, Shopee, Lazada, and Central Books website.
