Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo, Associate Justices of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals, Deans and administrators of law colleges and universities, and everyone here today, good afternoon.
Projects such as the Clinical Legal Education or CLEP and the Revised Model Curriculum or the RMC remind us of our role as proponents of legal education in our country, what we owe to one another as partners and stakeholders and what we owe to the present and future generations of law students and law graduates. That is, a program of study that is responsive not only to the rapidly changing times, but to the ever inquisitive minds of learners.
I would like to give full credit to our very own Comm. Josefe Sorrera-Ty who has been CLEP’s driving force since the beginning, working with the Committee and our CLEP partners, The Asia Foundation, with support from the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Office. CLEP is a program that helps law students help others, giving life to that legal adage, that “those who have less in life should have more in law.”
As to the RMC, as mentioned by this project was conceptualized by LEB’s former Chairman Emerson Aquende and completed during the leadership of Officer-in-Charge Justice Zenaida Elepano. But since he is not one to bask in the limelight of his achievements, in between both leaders, our very own Commissioner Aberlardo Domondon has worked indefatigably to ensure that Chair Aquende’s innovative abstract would become the important milestone that we are celebrating today in the field of legal education. We call it the Revised Model Curriculum because that’s exactly what it is. A model. A prototype. An example. In designing this model, the RMC Committee took into consideration the user’s requirements, with the hope that the model will ultimately be an engaging and dynamic law curriculum.
We believe that the core structure of the curriculum is resilient and flexible enough to allow you to build on it, in the exercise of that well-guarded academic freedom, tempered only by good foresight and sound judgment.
After today’s launching, the RMC will be viewed by new sets of eyes – your eyes as administrators and professors, and to be judged from the point of view of user experience. In this regard, we believe that the core structure of the curriculum is resilient and flexible enough to allow you to build on it, in the exercise of that well-guarded academic freedom, tempered only by good foresight and sound judgment.
On behalf of the Legal Education Board, I thank each of you for gracing this afternoon’s special event with your presence.
Thank you and good afternoon.