Raul S. Roco: In Memoriam

In 1989, a month after taking the September bar exams, I applied as an underbar at the law firm of Roco Buñag Kapunan & Migallos Law Offices which was then located at the former Anscor Bldg. in Ayala Avenue. At that time, the law firm was fairly young since the founders were former partners and associates of the ACCRA Law Office where they broke away.

For whatever reasons, I got a call the next day and I was scheduled for an interview. So, off I went to their office the day after the call, and a few minutes after sitting on the couch, I was called in by the secretary of then Congressman Raul S. Roco. He was the first partner who interviewed me. It was the first time I met a politician and although he would not be the last, he was the first one to impress upon me that politics is a public trust and a sacred duty. If politics was a religion, he was the high priest in the Holy of Holies.

The interview was short. He merely asked about my grades, my background, the languages I spoke and my undergraduate degree. In little less than 20 minutes, he told me I was hired but had to meet the other partners. Maybe, he hired me because my mom was from Bohol as was his wife, Sonia. So, he introduced me to Atty. Jose Mario Buñag (the present BIR Commissioner) who was no stranger since he was my Taxation I professor at the Ateneo, and to Attys. Lorna Kapunan and Babsy Migallos. I was to work at the law firm and not his Congressional office where his chief of staff that time was Joey S. Salceda, now congressman from the 3rd District of Albay. I was told to report for work on the first day of December 1989.

But this was not to be. On 1 December 1989, Col. Gringo Honasan launched his most deadly coup against the Aquino administration and nearly toppled her were it not for the US F-15 jets buzzing over Malacañang airspace. I finally went to work on December 9 which I distinctly remembered was a Friday. When RSR (as the lawyers called him) came to the office, he gathered all 11 lawyers and three underbars to a conference.

It was the day after the cessation of hostilities and RSR wanted to confer emergency powers on President Aquino. And so, he ordered us all to research available Supreme Court jurisprudence on rebellion, sedition, murder, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, martial law as well the constitutionality of granting the president emergency powers. The reason why I knew December 9 was a Friday was because we were told to work over the weekend, to submit a memorandum of law to him by Sunday. The entire law firm finished the work and came Monday, he delivered a rousing sponsorship speech granting President Aquino emergency powers.

Despite numerous queries from the Floor on its constitutionality, RSR fielded all the questions with supreme confidence and aplomb. It was as though he literally threw his whole weight on the bill itself. The solons could hardly put up a decent opposition. The bill passed the House and eventually, it became known as the Emergency Powers Act.

As a congressman, RSR left the day to day law office work to his other equally competent partners but whenever he was in the office, he would needle us with what little law we, young practitioners, knew then and proceeded to gently lecture me.

One time, while having lunch with us, I asked him how was he able to persuade the Supreme Court that the case of San Miguel Corporation versus John Gokongwei which dealt with a director's conflict-of-interest in a corporation could possibly be a matter of public interest. He convinced the justices that San Miguel Corporation contributed 6% to the Gross National Product and to allow Mr. John Gokongwei, the owner of a competing firm, to become a director of San Miguel would be inimical and detrimental to national interest. That day, I learned the importance of adopting a multi-disciplinary approach to a legal problem.

But all was not about law. In another instance, RSR once barged into my room wanting to know the name of the main protagonist in the play "Waiting for Godot". Like him, I was stumped but promised to get back to him. Eventually, the answer was given and I realized that despite his hectic legislative workload, his appetite for knowledge went beyond the law. He always had time to drown himself in arts and literature. I supposed that is because he was an English major in college.

Some say RSR had a bad temperament. I do no think so. While I never experienced tongue-lashing from him, his fits of anger were neither arbitrary nor whimsical. He just did not suffer fools gladly. When you worked for him, you naturally rose to the level of his excellence. The atmosphere in the law firm just reeked with utmost competence and excellence. And so, in a sense, it was unforgivable to be left behind. But like any sermon, there was purpose and the lesson would not be lost on the reprimanded.

I lost track of him after I left his firm. But through the years, I followed his successes and accomplishments. And when RSR heard excellent things about his former junior associates, he would boast to his friends that he trained them. And that was not an empty boast. What we have become in the practice of law is in large measure a product of our training under his tutelage. And I am quite confident that all the lawyers who passed through his portals would affirm the same bragging rights.

The last time I saw him was after the 2004 presidential elections in Enchanted Kingdom where he kept pace with his grandchildren at play in the fields. I greeted him and even if he was already gravely afflicted with cancer, he kept a gentle and happy composure, proud of what I have done with my life. Though much thinner, he was no less the great man I knew 15 years earlier.

But the most lasting statement that I shall forever remember was when he told us young lawyers then "to dazzle me with your brilliance or baffle me with your bullshit". Well, I am sure that he is in the halls of Asgard right now dazzling the angels and saints with the breadth and depth of his intellectual brilliance. I wager he can even debate Thomas Aquinas on how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Raul S. Roco will forever be remembered for his greatness in the halls of the House of Representatives and the Senate floor and for his incorruptible accomplishments in the Department of Education. But I will always cherish him as my first teacher in the law profession who took time to train the humble and the lowly, to emphasize that right is might, the primacy of country over one's own, public service over private greed and faith in man's goodness over pessimism and hopelessness.

Fare thee well, RSR. Enter heaven, good and faithful servant, your earthly task is done!