MARVIC M. V. F. Leonen
PHOTOGRAPHcourtesy of Supreme Court PH
Senior Associate Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen emphasized during his recent address at the Philippine Clinical Legal Education Program Summit in Baguio City that clinical legal education should be viewed not merely as preparation for examinations but as a means of expanding access to justice and empowering communities.
Leonen delivered a lecture titled “Who Counts as a Knower: CLEP Andragogy as a Core Mechanism Toward a Broader Access to Justice,” in which he discussed the relationship between legal education, andragogy, or adult learning, and access to justice.
Distinguishing between practicing law and delivering justice, Leonen stressed that legal education and the Bar examinations can assess legal competence but not a lawyer's commitment to justice.
“No diploma issued by any university certifies that its bearer can do or has done justice. That is not within the power of a diploma. Doing justice can only be chosen, and practiced, and chosen the following morning again,” Leonen said.
He also highlighted the value of andragogy, emphasizing that law students' lived experiences and real-world encounters are among “the richest material we have for educating them.”
Leonen said this principle extends beyond the classroom:
“[T]hat premise does not stop with the student. It holds equally for the people they will serve. The moment it is extended, andragogy stops being a technique of instruction and becomes a claim about who is credited with knowing anything at all. It becomes a tool of empowerment.”
He explained that by raising students' awareness of the justice system and the legal profession, CLEP “stops becoming an addition to the curriculum. It starts looking like the only part of it built on how adults truly learn.”
Leonen likewise urged participants to move beyond legal aid and focus on legal empowerment.
He explained that traditional legal aid often treats marginalized sectors as passive recipients of assistance, while legal empowerment enables communities to become active participants in pursuing justice and asserting their rights.
“Legal aid, as we have practiced it, keeps the poor the objects of our
charity, grateful and dependent, and returns them to the same conditions once the case is closed. Legal empowerment makes them the authors of their own power. The first does law on behalf of the poor. The second, legal empowerment, does justice together with them.”
He also discussed the judiciary's continuing efforts to strengthen clinical legal education through amendments to Rule 138-A.
Leonen noted that recent amendments removed territorial restrictions on student appearances and certification fees, imposed processing timelines for applications and limited documentary requirements to the application form and the law school's endorsement.
The summit's plenary discussions explored the relationship between access to justice, legal education and professional formation, highlighting CLEP's role in preparing future lawyers to respond to the needs of communities and justice seekers.
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