By Vince Alvic Alexis F. Nonato, Reporter
Book Review
The Best of the Unforgettable Legal Stories
By Aida Sevilla Mendoza
2016, Anvil Publishing, Inc.
Do not be intimated by the title and genre. You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand — and enjoy — The Best of the Unforgettable Legal Stories, a compilation of real-life cases made more colorful by newspaper columnist Aida Sevilla Mendoza.
Ms. Mendoza’s new book is the fourth such compilation of articles selected from the series she wrote for a weekly women’s magazine in the 1970s. Five of the 10 cases in this edition were already reprinted in the first three books (published from 1975 to 1980).
But, even if you already own an earlier copy, you can still check out the latest edition for the five recent cases featured when Ms. Mendoza revived the series for the Sunday Inquirer Magazine and Woman Today in 2012 and 2013.
Younger readers who may have missed the earlier editions would find this book very useful, as Ms. Mendoza noted in her preface that the laws and arguments presented by the featured lawyers are well in effect now.
The cases were sourced from some of the biggest names in the legal profession (including Senators Ambrosio B. Padilla and Salvador H. Laurel, the latter of whom eventually became vice-president). Sourcing from the winning party may be a bit one-sided perhaps, but beyond the documents, it takes an insider to be able to relate both the intricacies of the case and the emotions experienced by the party.
The names and details surrounding the cases, of course, are muddled just enough to keep anonymous the identities of the people unfortunate enough to land in an Unforgettable Legal Story.
Why unfortunate? The “classic” stories involved high society figures whose battles range from child custody cases and inheritance disputes to an adultery case that backfired on the jealous husband spectacularly.
Granted, the cases are quite individual in scope instead of holding national significance. But it’s really Ms. Mendoza’s vivid, detailed, biographical storytelling that brings life to the cases and makes them just as digestible and enjoyable as a soap opera (perhaps shown by the fact that three of her stories have already been adapted into films).
The layman, no doubt, may have been turned off by the overly complicated, technicality-riddled (and in not a few cases, grammatically deficient) text of legal documents and court decisions. Justice beat reporters, like yours truly, admittedly do not help matters when undertaking the arduous task of simplifying things when ensuring 100% accuracy takes precedence over reader engagement.
Ms. Mendoza, however, has a knack for making the legal stories engaging to the layman; while legal dramas tend to fall flat with their rather straightforward presentation, she is able to relate the cases with a certain crescendo that does not often come with these narratives.
Yet, the legal nuances of each case have not been sacrificed. Readers get a pretty faithful retelling of the legal battles, without the author neglecting to humanize the characters of each story.
That said, if you’re actually a practitioner or student of law, it might help to check out the book too.
The adaptation into creative non-fiction seems accurate and credible enough. The book is stamped with the imprimatur of no less than retired Associate Justice Adolfo S. Azcuna, the chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy, who wrote the book’s foreword.
The best kind of entertainment comes with insight. Incisive readers would not be disappointed as there’s enough to dig out from beneath the surface of each case. Ms. Mendoza’s writing has the ability to focus on the litigants involved in the legal battle while ensuring that the lawyers remain full characters with coherent thought processes the reader can follow.
Perhaps, aspiring criminal lawyers may want to emulate how Mr. Laurel tackled “The Case of the Wanton Witness,” in which an adultery charge backfires. Mr. Laurel’s tack was to attack the witness’s credibility by exposing her inconsistent and incredulous testimony, and he ended up showing the folly of prosecuting a case anchored solely on a person who turned out to be very much involved in the husband’s “business.”
Ms. Mendoza’s stories also contain something readers would not see in any legal document or court decision: the interesting epilogues that the lawyers shared with her, which showed that legal battles are sometimes just one episode in this drama called life.
The five “new” stories might be underwhelming in comparison, mostly because Ms. Mendoza adopted a more concise writing style that did not allow for the free-flowing and vivid narration of the earlier cases.
The new stories, however, balance human interest with the wide-reaching repercussions of recent legal developments, such as the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision (penned by Mr. Azcuna) that upheld the Commission on Elections’ regulations against premature campaigning. There’s also the high court’s 2005 decision that laid out the specific instance when a foreign divorce is recognized in the Philippines; Ms. Mendoza’s clear writing might as well serve as a reviewer on how to analyze and deconstruct the text of the law.
The entry about the infamous sex video scandal in the late 2000s also highlighted the advantage of Ms. Mendoza’s conscious choice to change the parties’ names, because it allows the reader to have a more sober analysis of why the party did not win her criminal case against her partner.
As Mr. Azcuna wrote, the cases “not only dwell on that importance interface of rules of law with social reality but also touch on the core of our values and way of life as a people and as part of humanity.”
Celebrate the Supreme Court’s 115th anniversary by delving into a world where an anti-climactic compromise agreement (to avoid a protracted decade-long court battle) counts as a happy ending.
The Best of the Unforgettable Legal Stories is available in National Bookstore for P275.
