To my fellow non-topnotchers & bar flunkers

Sabbatical

I am signing off from blogging until something of "transcendental importance, overreaching significance, or of paramount public interest" crops up. There is a dragon to be slain come November and blogging has become one among the many distractions that may keep me from being a dragon slayer.

My blogging journey started with  Under The Talisay Tree  in 2003.  Here's a sample from that old blog which should be taken with a grain of salt because it's about a fish cum hero - Lapulapu. In 2008 somehow I lost access to my account. So I created another blog under the same name but of different format. That blog has had sporadic postings when I started this one.

Imagine reading a book and suddenly something seems amiss in a particular passage. You go back over the sentence and find a modifier is dangling here or a typo is hovering there. In my case, that will disrupt my concentration on the topic at hand and time gets wasted going back on track. My frustration over these disruptions is the why and wherefore of this blog which was started in 2012. Not all the posts are about typos, though. In one post I had a lighthearted discussion about goat's milk as prestation (see here).

Speaking of typos, as a consequence of my loss of access to my original blog, I am disappointed, nay horrified, that I could not edit a typo on the very first words of one post (see here) which - the post, not the typo -was linked to by Manolo Quezon in his blog (see here).

And if you see from the page views that my posts look visited more than once, that is just me trying to see if a post needs further editing.

OK, I think I can deal with this blogging distraction The other distractions seem insurmountable: TV series and movies on "alam nyo na anong " sites. At the moment it is Designated Survivor, Blacklist, and Scorpion. I usually stop watching a series after a few seasons. TV series usually lose their intensity for lack of new plots like Suits or their stories can get weirder like Game of Thrones or the old  X-Files.

As it is now, instead of reading reviewers, I am reading closed captions or sub-titles when it is already 10PM so that the missus and children will not be disturbed by the sound.

So how can I follow this classic advice from reviewers:

I recommend that your wake-up time should be at 4:30 a.m. and “lights out” should be at 9 p.m. This is to make your body clock adjust to this schedule so that by November, you would be used to sleeping and waking up early.

Sour grapes

On May 3 next year the SC will release the 2017 Bar Exams results. I may not be prepared for the 2017 Bar Exams but I am ready for the results. Here's why:

Who cares about being no. 1. Until the 2016 Bar no one from a Cebu school made it to the top spot. The highest was the 3rd spot which was clinched in 1951 by Pablo P. Garcia, from the University of San Carlos (USC). He is the grandpa of my beauteous Professor in Legal Forensics, Mayor Christina Frasco of Liloan, Cebu.

Noy Pabling was joined at the 3rd spot only in 1975 by Emmanuel R. Pacquiao, of the University of the Visayas, and later in 1981 by Arthur T. Lim, also of USC.

Through the years the 4th to the 10th places were claimed by some 20 other Cebu graduates but it was only in 2015 that the 3rd place was surpassed when Athena Plaza, of USC, got the 2nd place. Which as we know was followed right away this year with a tour de force by USC when the top spot was taken by Karen Mae L. Calam, with three other spots on the top ten to boot. Take a bow, Dean Joan Largo!

Full disclosure: Prof. Joan and Prof. Bretch were my professors in Constitutional Law 1, and Obligations and Contract respectively. How do I rate them and their fellow professors? Let the results speak. Ipse loquator labor. And yes, they should be thankful I did not graduate from USC; else they would not have achieved their dream of 100% passing rate. :-)

So you see, no more record to aspire for. The seat is already taken. I might as well enjoy reading closed captions and subtitles while munching on sour grapes.


What's the fuss about the top 10.  Here's a news item right after the release of the 2016 bar exams:

MANILA - University of the Philippines (UP) President Danilo Concepcion has downplayed the absence of a UP College of Law topnotcher in the 2016 Bar examinations.

Concepcion, a Bar topnotcher in 1983, who is also UP College of Law dean, explained that law schools were not established to produce Bar topnotchers.

“The business of a law school is to teach law in the grand manner and to make great lawyers; it doesn’t say to make Bar topnotchers,” Concepcion was quoted by the Philippine Law Register as saying last Wednesday before successful UP Bar examinees.

 I, too,  fully concur with the sentiment; who cares about being a topnotcher. Let's drink to that with a bottle of sour grape juice.

There is just too many of us. One Manila university, or at least one of its students, posted on social media (I could not find the link anymore) saying that they may not have a topnotcher but they have the "living bodies" of 272 passers. Can anybody beat that?

Then I read the opinion column of Raul J. Palabrica where he mentioned Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate in Economics, bewailing the downside of too many lawyers. Here's the complete paragraph from the book The Price of Inequality:

The macroeconomic effect of America‘s litigious society was suggested by some studies that showed that countries with fewer lawyers (relative to their population) grew faster. Other research suggests that the main channel through which a high proportion of lawyers in a society hurts the economy is the diversion of talent away from more innovative activities (like engineering and science), a finding consistent with our earlier discussion of finance

Wouldn't adding my name to the lawlist  be like rubbing salt to the wound? Please pass the sour grapes.

No more need for a lapida. When I first entered law school I had this classmate who was a middle-aged cop. Asked why he was taking up law, his answer was the classic one for people going back to school in their older years: "Panglapida na lang ni." Just for inscription on one's gravestone.

When I went back to law school, it was my turn to answer the question. And this used to be the lettering I planned to be etched in gold leaf on my gravestone which should be made of the highest quality of marble from Romblon:

Or if you're not one for subtlety, and you missed the rhyme:

By the time I turned 50, however, I decided I would be cremated instead of being buried. Why bother with memorial plans or memorial plots? So there goes the need for the Atty. before my name, the roll number, MCLE compliance, etc.

But what about engraving the epitaph on the urn of my ashes? Or on the top of  paper weights that will contain my ashes? No, never mind, but sour grapes pa more, please.

Sweet lemons?

We'll have to wait for May 3, 2018 whether we'll have sour grapes or sweet lemons. Bring it on.