“Dura Lex Sed Lex”
Pre-Semester Non-classroom Lecture 48
Laws would be meaningless without courts. Laws tell you what your rights are. But your rights end where my rights begin. It is the court that draws the line between us. Without that clear separating line telling both of us what’s yours from mine, I would claim the whole banana and so would you. The situation ends up being exactly the same as if there had been no law to begin with.
You cannot just get your way. If you want to change anything in this world, you need BOTH laws AND the court.
A study showed that right now, there are about 32 million Filipinos whose first name is either “Boy” or “Girl.” How did this happen? Quite simply, mommy is still groggy from the anaesthesia of caesarian delivery, daddy is absent and the nurse filling up the birth registry form at the hospital has an early dinner date. So rushing to finish her job, pretty nurse (call her “Mia”) just copies the name written on the baby’s wristband “Boy Dizon” or “Girl Dizon.”
Fast forward 40 years, the baby is now president of a big corporation. Top management issues a memo, for strict compliance by everybody in the company, that the president’s name is “Alexander” or “Natasha.” But when it comes time for the president to sign a contract for the company, he or she must still sign as “Mr. Boy” or “Ms. Girl” otherwise the contract is defective.
To change their names to Alexander or Natasha in a way that will be binding on the whole world (not just the employees) they have to go to court.
However, even if the court grants their petition for “change of name” the court doesn’t really erase the original names “Boy” or “Girl” from the original birth certificate. Those names stay on the record FOREVER. It just directs the civil registrar (actually the PSA now) to enter an “amendment” in the record. So a clerk literally types (aha! there goes the ONE last remaining use for the manual typewriter) on the margins something like “per court order dated 10-25-21 ‘Boy’ is hereby amended to ‘Natasha’”
Oops.
That amendment is safe for a year, because you can’t file two successive petitions within one year. Therefore, our macho company president has to be called Mr. Natasha Dizon until he can repeat the process—or undergo a sex change operation, whichever is cheaper.
You complain, but that’s ridiculous! Well, here’s your first Latin legal maxim to impress your friends with, “dura lex sed lex.”
The law is harsh, but it’s still the law.
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”