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Paralegals ready for victims of abuse

BAGUIO CITY (Oct. 28) — After completing a three-day paralegal training this month here in the city, 40 law students from the University of Baguio (UB) and human rights workers are now ready to provide basic paralegal services for cases of abuse and injustice.

FLAG (Free Legal Assistance Group) Chairperson Atty. Pablito Sanidad who headed the team of lawyers during the training has high hopes that the activity will seriously help in the advocacy and practice of developmental legal aid.

“They (participants) can now use their newly-acquired skills to assist the poor, the oppressed, the weak and the deprived sectors of society”, he said.

The paralegal training introduced the practice of developmental legal aid and its difference with traditional legal aid. “It is not simply providing free legal services, but doing so because its clients are poor and oppressed”, Sanidad said.

Developmental legal aid looks at clients as reliable partners in litigation, not as passive parties dependent on a lawyer for cases to succeed.

Participants responded positively to the challenge of Cong. Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna to urgently act on the need for paralegal workers and lawyers amid the worsening economic, political, and social crisis of the country. In his discussion of the Philippine situation, he noted there would be “stormier times ahead” since government appears not to veer from its policies of deregulation, privatization, and liberalization.

Veteran activist Atty. Ed Abaya encouraged participants to be critical, daring, and creative in the course of work for developmental legal aid, and not to be afraid to question or limit actions on precedents but rather establish precedents that will benefit protection of people’s rights.

Other resource persons include women and children’s rights advocates-lawyers Glenda Litong and Gilda Guillermo.

The Public Interest Law Advocates (ADVOCATES), an organization of UB law students hopes to replicate the activity next year for its new members. Currently, the organization is developing a summer internship program to provide exposure to its members with the region’s marginalized sectors.

The training was organized by the Cordillera Indigenous Peoples Legal Center (DINTEG) and FLAG. # Beverly Longid for NORDIS

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