Dear friends,

Many of us in the social movements and CSOs in the Philippines believe that Leni Robredo, the current VP, is the most qualified to become the chief executive of 110 million Filipinas and Filipinos, primarily because she has done more for women’s rights than any other candidate, she’s been the VP for almost 6 years, previous to that a congresswoman for 3 years, previous to that an alternative lawyer for 10 years. She stated that if she does not win, she’ll go back to working for NGOs and/or alternative lawyering.

She’s second to Marcos Jr, according to the surveys.

She has captured the imagination of the people, a veritable movement. They’re organizing themselves without any central command or any kind of goading or guidance from Leni or her organized campaign group: “Nurses for Leni”, Farmers for Leni, Doctors for Leni, Med Students for Leni, Workers for Leni, Urban Poor for Leni, Architects for…, Lawyers for… , Accountants, Bankers, Insurers, Realtors, etc.

Many are also organizing themselves by regions, school affiliations, and families, in groups of different shapes and sizes.

She’s an alternative lawyer from SALIGAN (Alternative Legal Assistance Center, est. in 1987), where we both “grew up” and got to know each other. SALIGAN works with labour unions, urban poor/informal settlers, individual and organized women’s groups, children, peasants and farmers, indigenous peoples, and local governments. She spent 10 years at SALIGAN and she mentioned in a speech while campaigning for VP 6 years ago that, “I found myself there”. Current and former SALIGAN paralegals and lawyers form part of an organization, and Leni is part of it. There are those who think or assume that we are an ideological formation or form part of an ideological group, but we’re not.

Leni accurately described herself as a labour lawyer, a farmers/fishers lawyer, a women’s rights lawyer, an indigenous people’s lawyer, a local governance advocate.

“Alternative lawyering” is much more than pro-bono handling of cases for the underprivileged. AL involves engaging in dialogues (We deliberately try to avoid the word “teaching”, because we learn more from them) on the law with the basic sectors so they themselves can fight for their rights – in Congress, the Courts, the executive branches - with or without the assistance of alternative lawyers. It puts the people at the center of the struggle in legal matters broadly defined, with lawyers and paralegals only as support, primarily on formalistic requirements of the courts and other offices. AL also believes that lawyers and paralegals and equal in terms of contribution to society.

News Item: “REAL estate professionals and urban poor leaders in Metro Cebu have established a group to support the candidacy of presidential candidate Leni Robredo and vice-presidential candidate Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan.” SALIGAN folks actually find this extremely amusing since our internal rules prohibit us from representing or even associating with realtors, only urban poor folks. I asked SALIGAN to become a legal advisor to a venerable human rights org, but was flatly refused since it MIGHT involve representing the HR org as an employer in an employment dispute when our rules prohibit us from representing employers, ONLY UNIONS and WORKERS! In women’s rights or marital/partnership issues, we cannot represent men, only women. We can advocate only for peasants and fishers, not for landowners.

She mentioned that her stint at the Lower House of Congress and at the Office of the Vice President is but a continuation of her work as an alternative lawyer.

She’s the only woman candidate for president.

In Solidarity,

Tony Salvador
Third World Network
(Member of the board of trustees of SALIGAN.
Coordinator of SALIGAN’s Labour Unit from 1994-1998)