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By Perry Gil S. Mallari
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Photo by
Rene H. Dilan |
While most lawyers get fat checks as payment for
their services, it is not unusual for Atty. Honorata O. Victoria to
receive a basket of fruits or vegetable for providing legal
assistance. “They are tokens of gratitude, really, and they
sometimes lined my office,” she narrates smiling. The 40-year-old
Victoria is a human rights lawyer specializing on women and labor
issues. Though she’s been in the field for nearly 15 years, she
discloses that her sympathy for the downtrodden and the marginalized
was something ingrained to her long before she had any plan of
becoming a lawyer.
“I believe my late father, who is a frustrated
lawyer, is the one who influenced me to take this path,” she
reveals, adding, “He once dreamed of becoming an attorney but an
early marriage got in the way of his dream.” Despite an
unfulfilled ambition, Victoria emphasized that her father proved to
be an ideal family man working from one factory to another just to
provide well for his wife and two children. “He was a union
leader, another reason why I have a heart for the working class,”
she recalls with fondness. Victoria remembers that as early as grade
school, she was already reading such socially relevant publications
as the WE Forum then published by the late journalism icon Joe
Burgos. “Those were the kind of reading materials common in our
house during that time,” she points out.
Her father’s position as a union leader
eventually cost him his job. “I realized early on that in such a
situation, your security of tenure is always at stake,” she
laments, adding, “The company will either offer you a promotion,
ask you to take a substantial retirement package, just simply harass
you or fire you.” A man of principle, Victoria’s father opted to
slug it out to the very end. She recalls that prominent lawyer
Maggie Gunuigundo gave her father legal help then. With his
family’s finances in trouble, Victoria’s father later decided to
work in the Middle East while his labor case lingered in court for
many years. “I was already in law school when the decision was
handed down. It was in favor of my father. But since there was
already a change in ownership with the company involved, he could no
longer get any compensation. It was, in essence, a paper victory,”
she narrates with a tinge of sadness.
Though her young mind was already conscious of
ongoing social issues and conflicts around her, becoming a human
rights lawyer did not enter Victoria’s mind. While attending
Quezon City High School where she excelled academically, she
remembered that it was science, not social studies or current events
that were her main preoccupation.
Things began to change though after she enrolled
in political science in college. “It was then that my interest in
societal woes was reawakened,” Victoria recalls. After earning her
baccalaureate degree, she decided to take up Law.
As an intern in San Beda College, Victoria
became deeply involved with Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) where
she saw first hand the plight of people deprived of justice. “That
was when I said to my self that I would not become an ordinary
lawyer —I would become a human rights lawyer,” she intones.
After two years in San Beda, she transferred to
the University of the East where she finally earned her Law degree.
Soon after, Victoria’s family underwent another serious trial when
an accident incapacitated her father abroad during her Bar exam
period. The old man was repatriated but did not fully recover.
“It’s quite sad that he was debilitated to witness and enjoy my
first year of formal law practice,” Victoria recalls, her
melancholy evident.
Victoria today is actively involved with two
cause-oriented groups. The first one is with the Kanlungan Center
Foundation, a non-government organization concerned with the welfare
of overseas contract workers where she is a member of the board of
trustees, and with Task Force Detainee where she is a volunteer
lawyer handling litigation. She disclosed that there are hazards
involved in such kind of work. “My office received a death threat
once while I’m prosecuting an illegal recruiter whose husband
happened to be a policeman,” she says. Though such incidents cause
alarm, it never budged the young lawyer from helping those deprived
of justice. “Whenever those things happen, all I can do is
exercise caution,” Victoria relates, adding, “I once attended a
seminar that taught how to manage threats associated with my
profession.”
The bulk of the cases she’s handling now
involves abused women, unfair labor practices and political
detainees. Commenting on the former she says, “Contrary to popular
notion, domestic violence is not confined to the so called lower
strata of society. It is in actuality involves the rich and the
poor.”
Victoria says the patriarchal system of society
in the Philippines has a lot to do with the high rate of abuse
against Filipino women. “Some of the victims may have seen their
mothers being beaten up by their fathers and mistook the scenario as
the norm,” she explains. Victoria cites a woman’s economic
dependency on his husband as an additional catalyst for the woe.
“Some women prefer to endure the abuse rather than face economic
uncertainty,” she stresses. Victoria states that the best way for
women to protect their rights is to know the law. She emphasizes
that Republic Act 9262—the act defining violence against women and
their children—offers solid protection for victims of abuse.
“Immediate protection is available either from their barangays or
from the courts,” she narrates spiritedly.
She offers the same advice for workers. “The
best way for employees to protect themselves is to know their
rights,” she admonishes. Victoria believes in the merits of
organizing a company union for the simple reason that there’s
strength in number. “Traditionally, there’s an enmity between
the management and the union. But this should not be the case, they
should be partners instead for their mutual benefits,” she points
out.
She says that though the government is exerting
effort to uplift the condition of workers, it is far from enough
because it is so heavily focused on the visible formal sector.
“The formal sector, which is comprised of the workers in the
factories and companies, is just the tip of the iceberg. The
peddlers and the vendors in the streets, which make up the informal
sector and is greater in number, have not received much attention
until now,” Victoria relates.
She hopes that one day, Filipinos do not have to
work abroad anymore just to provide a decent life for their
families. “I believe that we are not really protecting our workers
if we market them overseas because there is always a possibility
that they would be abused in a foreign land,” she intones.
Ideals aside, Victoria must also deal with the
nuts-and-bolts reality. Being a human rights lawyer is not the path
to riches. Victoria says that striking a proper balance is the key.
“Seventy percent of the case I’m handling are advocacies and do
not generate revenue. But the remaining 30 percent are paying
clients. That’s where I get the money to pay my staff, my office
space and other operational expenses,” she reveals.
She concedes that an unsavory image of the
lawyer has been painted indelibly in the public’s mind. “There
are sincere lawyers out there who are committed on changing the
people’s view of our profession,” she emphasizes.
Victoria, who is also an evangelical Christian,
found no problem in reconciling her work with her faith. “I have a
favorite verse in the Bible where the Lord Jesus Christ said,
‘Whatever you do to the least of your brethren, you have also done
unto me.’ I believe that helping people through my job is part and
parcel of my worship and service to God,” she declares. Powered
with conviction and courage, Atty. Honorata O. Victoria goes bravely
on with her mission of justice.
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