UNDERRATED HEROES: JBL REYES, ROBERTO CONCEPION

By Philip Lustre Jr.

The eminent jurists, JBL Reyes and Roberto Concepcion, are two underrated heroes. As Supreme Court magistrates, they served with unparalleled integrity and diligence, using their talents and erudition to establish judicial doctrines, which have become law of the land.

Lawyers are familiar with their ponencia, now part of the jurisprudence in the country. But few know their contributions after they had long left the bench. 

The two jurists had managed to serve the country as private citizens and they did it at the height of martial law era, or the dictatorship Ferdinand Marcos created.

As Supreme Court justices and later, as private citizens, JBL Reyes and Concepcion were models of moral rectitude, using their talent to oppose the Marcos dictatorship and sustain the traditions in civil liberties. 

Incidentally, Concepcion was the Supreme Court chief justice, when Marcos declared martial rule in 1972.

Ruben Balane, who held the JBL Reyes Professorial Chair at the UP College of Law, said JBL Reyes penned 1,171 ponencias, or decisions for the Court, 38 concurring opinions, 24 dissenting opinions, seven concurring-and-dissenting opinions, making him one of the most productive jurists of all time in Philippine jurisprudence.

Balane said that more than 300 of his decisions involved civil law, or over 25 percent of his total output. This was largely due to what Balane described as "his undisputed mastery of the most intricate and challenging of fields." 

Incidentally, JBL Reyes, who spoke Spanish, actually read the Spanish Civil Code the country has inherited to become part of the current Civil Code.

JBL Reyes is reputed to have penned  majority opinions, which became judicial doctrines. In his last ponencia, JBL Reyes gave a restrictive interpretation of the expiring Parity Rights Agreement. In Republic v. Quasha, the Supreme Court said the rights given to Americans and Filipinos alike to own and exploit public lands, natural resources, and utilities ended when the Parity Rights expired on July 1, 1974. 

His ponencia quashed attempts to extend or modify the Parity Agreement, which was described by nationalist elements as a remaining vestige of American colonial rule in the country.

Concepción had earned the reputation as an expert on constitutional law. He took a strong position on the promotion and protection of civil and individual liberties. His steadfast adherence to the rule of law has characterized his judicial philosophy. 

His liberal approach towards individual rights and liberties, civil and personal, has been the hallmark of his judicial career.

In People v. Hernandez, the Supreme Court, through Concepcion, then a junior magistrate, ruled in 1956 that rebellion is a single offenses it could not be mixed with other crimes like murder and arson. 

On the basis of this ruling, labor leader, activist, and prolific writer Amado Hernandez, who later became a National Artist awardee, was granted bail, leading to his temporary liberty after five years of imprisonment. In 1964, the High Court acquitted Hernandez.

In Stonehill v. Diokno, the High Court, in a 1967 majority opinion penned by Concepcion, ruled that illegally seized pieces of evidence could be not used as admissible evidence in court, adopting what has been called the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine in local jurisprudence. 

This doctrine has lasting impact in Philippine jurisprudence. It was adopted in the 1973 Constitution as among the provisions of the Bill of Rights. The 1987 Constitution has retained it.

In Lansang v. Garcia, the Supreme Court, also through Concepcion, upheld the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus by Marcos, but declared that the judiciary had the authority to inquire on the factual basis of its suspension. 

The judicial review did not end there, as the majority opinion empowered the judiciary to annul it, if the Executive Department failed to establish any legal ground. This power of judicial review is now among the provisions of the 1987 Constitution.

Although he was in the minority in Javellana v. Executive Secretary, Concepcion delivered a dissenting opinion that showed his deep disapproval of the 1972 declaration of martial law. In his last ponencia, Concepcion summed up how the justices voted on the issue of upholding the 1973 Constitution, but said in unequivocal terms that it was never properly ratified by the Filipino people in accordance with the law. 

The majority opinion in Javellana became the constitutional basis to legitimize the martial law regime.

JBL Reyes, who retired as Supreme Court associate justice in 1972, was the first president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, which was formed as the unified umbrella organization of lawyers on March 16, 1973, or barely a year after the 1972 martial law declaration. 

He served as its president emeritus and adviser for the next 12 years, providing direction for a nascent organization that sought to define itself under the martial law era. He was among the convenors of the Anti-Bases Coalition, which opposed the retention of US military bases here.

Concepcion, who retired as Supreme Court chief justice few months after JBL's in 1973, was the first head of the IBP committee that provided free legal services to indigent clients. 

He expanded the committee to become the IBP legal aid center until President Corazon Aquino named him in 1986 as one of the 50 members of the commission that drafted the 1973 Constitution.

Since the IBP was born and raised under the repressive martial law era, many people, particularly lawyers, feared that the IBP would become not as the desired integrated organization of lawyers nationwide, but as part of the martial law apparatus.

But that was something that did not happen, as the two prominent jurists charted the IBP's destiny towards improving the legal profession and making free legal aid services as one of the cornerstones of its tasks.

As its first president, JBL Reyes refused efforts by Marcos to use the IBP to curtail civil rights and perpetuate himself in power. He defined the lawyers' ethical conduct and sought ways to treat Marcos from a distance by avoiding any conferment of any semblance of legitimacy it badly needed. 

Concepcion, his best friend, did the same, as he opted to concentrate his efforts to transform the IBP as a prime giver of free legal aid services to poor litigants.

JBL Reyes and Concepcion had made it a point that the IBP, as an institution of lawyers, did not want to antagonize Marcos. But they did not want it to be co-opted either to become a complacent accomplice to the excesses of the martial law regime. 

Hence, they set rules and parameters of a lawyer's professional conduct so that lawyers would not become unwitting tools of the emerging Marcos dictatorship.

The onslaughts of the martial law regime were severe as shown by thousands of arrests of political activists and opposition leaders, their detention without trials, and the empowerment of the military personnel in many areas despite their lack of skills and competence to govern. 

After taking off their judicial robes, JBL Reyes and Concepcion took the bull by its horns to steer the IBP to respectability and temper the ill effects of martial law. Unbeknownst to many people, it was their show, as they ran rings on Marcos.

Unknown to the public, the two respected jurists quietly mobilized the IBP leaders to confer with military authorities on those spates of arrests and detentions, sought ways to ease the detainees' difficulties in the military stockades, and accelerated probes of their cases. 

The goal was simple. Those detainees should be informed of whatever crimes imputed on them. Detainees who were not guilty should be sent home. Those who were not should be charged and speedily tried, and their cases resolved.

For his part, Concepcion groped in the dark on how its free legal aid services would reach poor litigants. He raised many questions on its mechanics, but he nonetheless settled on the fundamental - its spirit. 

After a series of consultations with leaders IBP, Concepcion's committee had come out with a free legal aid program to become the cornerstone of its current legal aid program.

Its guidelines equate legal aid services to public service to give maximum assistance to "indigent and deserving" members of the community "to forestall an injustice." 

During his initial two-year term, Concepcion worked for the creation of free legal aid offices in 78 IBP chapters nationwide, extending free legal assistance to a number of persons, especially in Mindanao, which was then torn by a Muslim separatist war. 

According to Concepcion, the IBP's free legal aid in Mindanao assumed importance because of the absence of state presence in many strife-torn areas there.

By sheer moral force, JBL Reyes and Roberto Concepcion provided the Integrated Bar of the Philippines with the moral moorings to put the young institution on an even keel during the early years of martial law and beyond. 

Without the two septuagenarians, whose moral rectitude was beyond reproach, the IBP could have shaky moral foundations.

The two jurists never succumbed to pressures to sing hosannas and pay obeisance to Marcos and his "New Society." 

While it was fashionable - and comfortable - in those days to join the cacophony of praise to Marcos and his "New Society," or to ingratiate themselves with the dictator, the two eminent legal warriors chose to fight their own battles, opting to strengthen the IBP to become a viable institution.

They did it quietly and without fanfare. They were old school, as they chose to keep their dignity intact.

But their most forceful accomplishment was to define the role of lawyers amid the political turmoil, repression, and polarization of various social forces. Also, they defined what would constitute too on free legal aid services to the poor.

To his credit, JBL Reyes, Concepcion, and the IBP were never coopted by the dictatorship. This is the tradition JBL Reyes and Concepcion have set for the succeeding years. This is the main reason they are heroes too.