The Lawphil Project

by: Melissa Sicat

(fifth entry)

Perhaps every law student in the Philippines would agree if I say that life in law school nowadays would not be the same without lawphil.net. I first discovered the website when one of my former blockmates from the evening section texted me the assigned case for our mock recitation. If I remember it right, it’s the case which involves Chi Ming Choi. I had an 8am-5pm work schedule in Makati then and I could not go to UP Law Lib to photocopy the SCRA version so I googled the case title sent to me and voila, I was able to read the case through lawphil.net!

If a case is too long and I want to save my allowance (and if I feel that I won’t get called anyway for recitation), I just download the case from lawphil.net and read it from my PC/laptop. That way, I can just cut and paste the pertinent paragraphs so that I wouldn’t waste ink printing so many pages, most of which are irrelevant to our subject.

Now that I’m a senior law student, lawphil.net has become even more important, especially now that we’re already under internship in the UP Office of Legal Aid (OLA). When I draft my pleadings, lawphil.net is indispensable since I have to cite the most recent and relevant jurisprudence to make my pleading more convincing and authoritative. I can do that in just a few minutes through lawphil.net. Because of lawphil.net, defending OLA clients has become more efficient and effective. An abused and illegally dismissed employee has been awarded backwages and underpaid salaries. A sexually harassed teenager would be avenged from her molester uncle. A client who is indebted to several banks for millions of pesos, but who is a victim of typhoon Ondoy and has practically nothing now has the option of filing for insolvency. All of these were done faster than the time I would have spent had I conducted my legal research manually in the law library.

So to all the wonderful people from the Arellano Law Foundation who created lawphil.net, I would like to take this opportunity to send my deepest thanks for making the lawphil project the best and most reliable website a law student can depend on (well, it’s the best in my opinion). A lot of lives have been changed because of this brilliant website.