Recent Articles

MOA on BJE Ancestral Domain: Unconstitutional

October 14, 2008 09:13

Today, the Supreme Court issued its decision on the the Memorandum of Agreement on the Ancestral Domain Aspect (MOA-AD) of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP)-Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Tripoli Agreement on Peace of 2001 (The Province of North Cotabato vs. Republic, 14...

Notice: phBar.org hacked

October 03, 2008 04:16

An off-topic from the regular programming — some of you may be wondering what happened to the phBar.org site. I got a call a couple of hours ago telling me that the phbar.org forum was hacked. Ptolemy again raised this matter in his comment in one of the posts here. Unfortunately, it’s...

2008 Bar Exams Questions and Discussion

September 22, 2008 08:25

I’m no longer posting the questions and proposed answers for the three past Sundays of the 2008 bar exams (Political Law, Labor Law, Civil Law, Taxation, Mercantile Law and Criminal Law). Please refer to phBar.org for the questions and the discussions. Incidentally, the subject matter...

MCLE Compliance for New Lawyers

September 15, 2008 03:44

In the previous post on the extension of the compliance period (to 1 January 2009) for Bar Matter 1922, Alpha_Mike and Orbil inquired about the rule applicable to new lawyers. This is covered by MCLE Governing Board Order No. 1, s. 2008, which pertinently provides: “. . . lawyers who pass the...

What happens to the employees of Shariff Kabunsuan?

September 14, 2008 14:20

The creation of Shariff Kabunsuan, a new province in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), is unconstitutional. This is the ruling of the Supreme Court in Bai Sandra Sema vs. COMELEC and Didagen Dilangalen (G.R. No. 177597, 16 July 2008). The ARMM was created under Republic Act 6734, as...

Discussion: Proposed Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008

September 10, 2008 03:10

You may be aware that there’s a growing debate on the proposed “Reproductive Health and Population Development Act of 2008″ filed in the House of Representatives. Rep. Edcel Lagman as the principal sponsor (I still have to find the full text of the bill, although Rep. Lagman filed...

MCLE Compliance: Implementation of Bar Matter 1922 extended to 1 January 2009

September 05, 2008 09:47

The Supreme Court earlier issued Bar Matter No. 1922, requiring all lawyers to indicate the number and date of issue of their MCLE Certificate of Compliance, and if they could not do so by 25, August 2008, it will result to the dismissal of the case and the expunction of the pleadings from the...

Entrepreneurship and Job Contracting

August 31, 2008 08:07

The entrepreneur who starts a small business is almost always an owner-employee, performing the tasks of that business in addition to managing the business itself. A webpage creator or a software programmer who starts out his own business does the programming and, in addition, does the marketing...

Bar Tips (Atty. Joan De Venecia’s Lecture)

August 04, 2008 04:41

The entire phbar community would like to express its gratitude to Joan for sharing her time and effort in giving a lecture during the 2nd Gathering of the phbar community. Joan placed No. 1 during the 2005 Bar Exams. The summary of the lecture is reproduced at phbar.org. The full presentation is...

Time to Relax: Long Weekends for August

August 04, 2008 02:56

All work and no play kills a lawyer, well, everyone. Maybe I don’t need to cite statistics to prove that work-related stress and pressure are the usual culprits in illness/sickness (and, unfortunately, death) among lawyers. True, so many of us have learned to cope and deal with stress, but...