Keynote message of retired Chief Justice ARTEMIO V. PANGANIBAN during the 50th Anniversary Dinner of ACCRA Law Offices held on June 21, 2023, at the Grand Ballroom of the Shangri-La at the Fort, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.
Compañeros y Compañeras, Damas y Caballeros. At the outset, permit me to thank the talented and lovely Managing Partner of ACCRA, Trina Prodigalidad, for inviting me to attend this culminating dinner at the Grand Ballroom of the Shangri-La at the Fort to mark the 50th Anniversary of ACCRALAW’s glorious history, and for giving me the honor and privilege to articulate, to quote her letter of invitation, a “keynote message.”
Just for the record, if the ACCRA seniors will recall, I have also spoken during your venerable law firm’s 40th Anniversary at the Manila Golf on November 29, 2012. I was requested to speak on the topic, “How the Judiciary Can Help the Economy.” Thus, I discussed three landmark decisions affecting business; namely, Tanada v. Angara, La Bugal B’laan v. Ramos and Gamboa v. Teves.
For today, I am gratified and inspired by your theme and mission to strive and thrive “Beyond Legal Excellence” by serving the poor and marginalized through your CSR Department in collaboration with selected non-governmental organizations or NGOs. Like you, I believe in helping the poor help themselves through private entrepreneurship. As the Chinese sage Confucious once said, “Give a man a fish, and you save him for a day, but teach him how to fish and you save him for a lifetime.”
To help me achieve this mission, I organized the Foundation for Liberty and Prosperity or FLP because I had no CSR Department to assist me. Our Foundation, in partnership with other foundations and corporations I am a director or adviser of, grants 20 yearly law scholarships at P200,000 each to senior and junior law students and 5 yearly fellowships for graduate students taking masters’ degrees in entrepreneurship, science, management, economics or business law at P450,000 each. We refer to these as the FLP ESMEL fellowships. Our ultimate projects, in partnership with the Supreme Court and the business community, are the construction of an immersive, interactive, and AI-powered Museum for Liberty, and Prosperity and the establishment of a multi-billion peso Prosperity Fund to invest in and help manage small and medium enterprises or SMEs. I invite ACCRA and its partners to join us in these two ultimate projects.
Ladies and gentlemen, one of the deepest regrets of my humble life was my inability to honor the invitation of my dear friend Edong Angara, as he was nicknamed before he got known as SEJA, to join ACCRA at its inception because I had many commitments I could not ignore. I already had an ongoing law partnership, engaged in some family businesses, and was a director of a commercial bank, an insurance company, and a mining corporation, which all became clients of ACCRA. Today, they have vanished from our consciousness because the bank was merged with one of the largest universal banks, the insurance company was absorbed by a much bigger insurance firm, and the mining company did not survive the onslaughts of time.
However, when Edong, together with some of the brightest lights of the legal profession in the Philippines and elsewhere, founded and headed the ASEAN Law Association or ALA in the early 1980s, I could no longer decline his kind invitation. And since then, I have been active in the ALA. At the persistent urging of Ave Cruz, I have become, though unworthy, Chairman of ALA Philippines and Vice President of regional ALA since 2015. I will be replaced on January 1, 2024, by incumbent Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo. After SEJA joined public service, Ave took over in steering ALA in various capacities notably as its regional President from 2015 to 2018. He was succeeded by Singaporean Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon who will serve as President until October this year when he would be replaced by the incumbent lady Chief Justice of Malaysia, The Right Honorable Tun Tengku Maimun binti Tuan Mat.
In several milestones in the many-splendored career of Edong, I also had some small parts. For example, when he was President of the University of the Philippines in the early 1980s, I convinced some friends in Japan to donate fire trucks to the UP for which Edong granted me, in appreciation, a miniature replica of the UP Oblation though I did not have the privilege of being a UP alumnus. Another example, when the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption or GOPAC held its 5th Global Conference at the Philippine International Convention Center on January 30 to February 1, 2013, he – as the Conference Chairman – named me Secretary General though I was never a parliamentarian.
After Trina learned I nearly join ACCRA during its early days, she exclaimed, “Maybe, it is best you did not join ACCRA. Otherwise, you would have stayed with us and never became Chief Justice.” Well, I will now respond to her in this wise, “If I had joined ACCRA, I would have been the first ACCRA partner to become Chief Justice.” I stress “first” because I believe Trina is more than qualified to join the Supreme Court after her stint as ACCRA Managing Partner. And she is young enough to be Chief Justice before her retirement from the Court. She will join at least two of your partners who have become top leaders of our country as Senate Presidents. I am of course referring to our beloved SEJA and the great Franklin Drilon.
I am proud and honored to say that all the five founding partners of ACCRA were/are my esteemed friends both personally and professionally, but I was closest to Edong and to Ave Cruz, the only survivor to date of the big five. He and I are golf buddies and dancing aficionados. We promised each other that we will reach 100 years and beyond without loss of our mental and physical prowess. That is why Ave and I (and his beautiful wife Helen) continue to hit golf balls even if our longest drive goes no farther than 150 yards. We also persist in exercising at the gym and walk the streets of our village in the early mornings to bend our knees and straighten up our backs.
Though the five founders and many of their successors – like Roger Vinluan, Boy Lazatin, Gina Geraldez, Eboy Tan, Tess Herbosa, Emer de Guzman, Regis Puno, Rowena Flores, and Oliver Pantaleon, to name some of them – were and are also my friends, they never intruded directly or indirectly in my work in the Supreme Court. I believe they knew that I would be – as I humbly believe I have been – fair and objective to all, especially to ACCRA and its clients. And now that I happen to sit as a director or adviser in several public companies, I have invariably recommended ACCRA and its partners to solve their legal problems and handle their cases, as a testament to my esteem for your majestic law firm.
Indeed, ACCRA prospered over the years as one of the largest and best law firms in our country and our region, not only because its founders and their successors have become top leaders of our people but also because its current partners, associates and other lawyers and employees consistently adhere and uphold your motto of going “Beyond Legal Excellence.”
To close my remarks within the time allotted to me, let me say Congratulations again to ACCRA as it hits gold, more gold on its glorious 50th Anniversary. With the Lord’s grace and mercy, I hope to be invited to ACCRA’s even more glorious 75th Anniversary when it hits diamond, more diamond in 2048 with Her Honor, retired Chief Justice Patricia Ann T. Prodigaligad as the guest of honor and speaker. Cheers!
The Personal Website of Retired Chief Justice Panganiban 