IN 1969, when the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman was a roiling caldron of student activism as they rally against an overstaying strongman in Malacañang, a promising 25-year-old student of the UP College of Law had just placed third in the Bar Examinations. Senate President Franklin M. Drilon was that man, who said he pursued the practice of law because he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“Was being a lawyer a childhood dream?” the BusinessMirror asked. “Honestly, no. I was influenced by my father, I took up law when I was already first-year AB in college,” he volunteered.
But we are getting ahead of the story.
The BusinessMirror had to wait for some time to interview Drilon because he was in the thick of preparation for the Liberal Party senatorial lineup for the 2016 elections. There were other pressing matters that his office would not divulge.
Eventually, he finally gave his consent first week of October at his sixth floor office of the Senate in Pasay City.
When I was ushered into the senator’s room, I had to negotiate a sizable acreage of floor space before reaching his desk. There, at the far end of the room, wearing a bespoke suit, sits the Big Kahuna, larger than life, physically and metaphorically.
As a fearless lawyer and fierce advocate of justice, the senator was instrumental, as justice secretary, in the prosecution and conviction of Mayor Antonio Sanchez of Calauan, Laguna, who masterminded the rape-slaying of a UP Los Baños coed and the murder of her friend; and Claudio Teehankee, Jr., scion of a highly influential political figure, who was accused of gunning down Maureen Hultman.
Both cases ended up in convictions. I told the senator beforehand in a letter that we were to discuss what he was doing at age 25, when most young men are either searching for the meaning of life in the company of drinking buddies, while some had already made up their mind what serious career to pursue. The questionnaire was in front of him and he graciously asked me to sit and we proceeded with the conversation.
Drilon was born on November 28, 1945, in Iloilo City, Iloilo. He is the eldest son of Cesar Drilon Sr. and Primitiva Magtunao. He took his elementary education at the Baluarte Elementary School in Molo, Iloilo City, Iloilo, and graduated in 1957. He finished his secondary education at UP – Iloilo College (now University of the Philippines High School in Iloilo) in 1961.
At UP, he was the associate editor to the Philippine Collegian and served as councilor of the UP Student Council. Among his classmates were future politicians Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Ronaldo Zamora. In 1969 he completed his Bachelor of Laws at the UP College of Law.
In the same year he took the Bar examination and finished with the third highest score.
He said he was already a mature 19 and 20 years old when he decided to take up law and admits that he was not distracted by the ongoing rallies and frequent class disruptions at the UP, where many of the young firebrand had joined hands, holding placards, or engaged in “DGs” (discussion groups), clamoring for the dictator to end his term.
He said that although he was aware of the ongoing revolutionary spirit engulfing the UP campus, and other campuses across the country, his head was buried in books reviewing for the Bar.
“We had our shares of rallies, the Vietnam War going on, but I guess I was intent to become a lawyer,” he said.
“I was active, I was a university councilor in the UP student council, we were in the Philippine Collegian together with Miriam Defensor-Santiago, my editor in chief, and I was active in extracurricular student activities.”
“But I was not drawn into the firebrands of the left,” he admits, adding; “That’s basically what occupied my mind and my life, talagang gusto kong gumaling bilang abogado.”
Drilon said that he was thrilled upon knowing that he successfully hurdled one of the toughest of government examinations. “Of course, I was thrilled, especially after, when I was recommended by my professor, Dean Irene Cortez, who later on became a justice of the SC [Supreme Court], to a known law firm.”
“She recommended me to what was the most prestigious law firm at that time, Sycip, Salazar, Luna, Manalo & Feliciano. When we were students, we keep on hearing about this law firms—the big ones in Makati City—which, when you were a law student, you had always dreamed of joining so that you learn from the masters, so to speak.”
In time, he was a full-time lawyer and he vividly recalls the daily walks from his boarding house at Maria Orosa Street to Intramuros, where he had his office.
“One day, while I was on the way to my office, there was a large commotion at the then-Congress, across City Hall.
Now the National Museum, it was then-President Ferdinand Marcos who presided at the opening of Congress in 1970, and while delivering a speech, he was met with derision and catcalls from the leftists elements of the First Quarter Storm. Later he said he came to know that on that fateful day, the student activists hurled the papier mache crocodile and the cardboard coffin at Marcos, while descending the concrete staircase to a waiting limousine. In 1972 Drilon tied the knot with fellow lawyer and ACCRA senior partner, Violeta Calvo, who bore him two children—Eliza and Patrick.
During his candidacy for a Senate seat in 1995, Drilon often traveled to the US to be with his wife who was then being treated for lung cancer. Mrs. Drilon died of the disease in September 1995, two months after her husband assumed his Senate seat.
Two years after he was widowed, Drilon, at 50 years old, said he proposed to close family friend Mila Serrano-Genuino, who was a widow. They married with former Presidents Aquino and Ramos as wedding sponsors.
Drilon’s lawyering includes as an associate lawyer to the Sycip, Salazar, Luna, Manalo & Feliciano Law Offices (now SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan). He moved to the Angara, Abello, Concepcion, Regala & Cruz Law Offices (ACCRALAW) in 1974, where he serves as senior counsel. He was elevated to partner in 1975, comanaging partner in 1981 and managing partner in 1986.
“I was recruited by the late Augusto Sanchez, as undersecretary of labor in 1986, following the Edsa the revolution. When I was practicing law, I had many corporate clients and labor problems and I had exposure in labor practice on the side of management,” Drilon recalls vividly.
“And I had a number of encounters with ‘Bobbit’ Sanchez during those raucous times but he always respected me, I would like to think, and I always had a respect for him.” Human-rights lawyer and former Labor Secretary Augusto “Bobbit” Sanchez spent years fighting strongman Marcos. He died of a heart attack on February 17, 2003.
“Although we were on the opposite side of the fence, he knew that I was just doing my profession and my lawyering and, therefore, when he was looking for an undersecretary, he did not hesitate to invite me and cleared and discussed with Cory [then-President Corazon] Aquino my joining public service.”
Mrs. Aquino had formed a revolutionary government upon assuming office, with mandate from the bittersweet tumult of the Edsa revolution.
“I joined the Department of Labor as undersecretary in August of 1986,” he added, and a year later, was appointed as deputy secretary of labor.
Three years later, I became secretary of labor, and in 1990, I became secretary of justice,” he recalls his successive rise to fame.
He confined that he has been bookish as a child. Now we call that a nerd. He admits that although he engages in youthful activities, like the lure of nightly binges with friends, or chasing the skirts, chose to bury his head in books.
On long trips, he reads John Grisham’s novels or biographies. Reading became an ingrained habit he easily sails through the legalese and the jargon of lawyering because, as he said, he likes to read voluminous legal tomes.
“In 1995, after nine years in the Cabinet, I entered the political field and became a senator.”
Upon the opening of the 16th Congress, Drilon was elected, for the fourth time, to the third highest position in the land, the Senate presidency—a post he had previously held from April to November 2000; from July 2001 to June 2004; and from July 2004 to June 2006.
During the 15th Congress, Drilon chaired the Senate Finance Committee and the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Public Expenditures. As chairman of both committees, Drilon successfully sponsored the swift passage of the General Appropriations Act for the years 2011, 2012 and 2013.
He championed major reform measures during the 15th Congress: the GOCC Governance Act of 2011, the law that synchronized the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with the May national elections; the resolution annulling the original voters’ list in the ARMM and allowing the Commission on Elections to conduct a reregistration for a new one; and the sin-tax reform law. He referred to it as “anticancer law.” Recognizing his exemplary leadership, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) elected him its president in 2005. From 2006 he was chairman of the IPU Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians. He is a member of the IPU executive committee.
Drilon is highly proud of having led the cleanup drive of the Iloilo River, a feat, that many said, could probably be applied to the Pasig River. He is also equally gratified with the completion of the Iloilo Convention Center, which would be one of the venues of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Summit this November.
He was also the pivotal force behind the approval of the P11.2-billion Jalaur River Multipurpose Project-Stage II. I asked Drilon, on a separate occasion, his secret in the speedy recovery of the river and the efforts required to achieve it
“I had to cajole a lot of people, ship owners, fish-pen operators, and illegal settlers, whose livelihood are highly dependent on the river—to give way or help us remove their derelicts,” he said.
One of those he inveigled to leave was a ship repair facility, who appropriated for its private use over a hectare of government land along the river bank. A cadastral survey had to be undertaken because through the years, he said the river had altered its flow by the presence of illegal settlers, which also caused frequent flooding of the surrounding areas.
Drilon said the sunken ships and other shipwrecks that had stayed at the river’s bottom for years had to be removed before the rivers’ rehabilitation could proceed. Today, the promenade is filled with people enjoying the view and breathing the fresh air. At the far end of the river gathered several tall buildings, crammed together on a suddenly expensive piece of real estate, where café’s, bars and restaurants vie one another for the customer’s attention.
I asked him if the same feat could be applied to the Pasig River. “Maybe, but it could prove to be difficult,” but did not say why. However, observers who had seen the “new Iloilo River, said it would be difficult to emulate it and make the Pasig River smell like newly laundered clothes.
Drilon said the Iloilo-Batiano River Development Council, composed of political and private sector leaders, was formed to undertake the effort, while he provided the funding through his Presidential Development Assistance Program, one project that was praised and not reviled. Now that he had reached the pinnacle of his political power and prestige, the BusinessMirror posit this query: “Did it ever enter your mind to seek the presidency? The BusinessMirror told Drilon that he is one of the few intellectuals and statesmen in the country who has the brain, experience and accumulated insight to aspire for the country’s top post, “with all due respect to the other contenders.”
As was his wont, it took some time for Drilon to reply, and when he did, he seems to be hemming and hawing.
He took a deep breath (maybe it was buntong hininga), and in measured tone, he divulged what seem an idea that had been playing in his mid: “I do not…I keep…I mean…try to picture myself going through the campaign,” he said, almost pleading, “and the ‘office,’ kung minsan naisip ko, gusto ko pang mabuhay ng matagal kaysa sasakit ang ulo…hehehe.”
“I just help, you know,” and I took that to mean he is satisfied having contributed his lot for the country’s advancement and in his later years, to steer the Senate to new heights. But after another pause, Drilon let on; “Gusto ko sigurong mabuhay pa ng mahaba, levity aside.”
That pretty sums up the political situation in the country today. Mired in mediocrity, dominated by dynasties and empty posturings. It is also a threat to one’s life for those who could make a difference, a threat Drilon does not take lightly. He said his final piece: “Having been exposed to governance, having been exposed to many facets of public service, I feel I can contribute to good policies of government.”