S1L54 – The Al Capone Lesson: there’s more than one way to skin a cat
Helloooo there, Professor!! Happy New Year! We didn’t know you liked boating!”
Déjà vu? This can’t be happening—Deema, Kata, Laarnee, Juan and Jack together again?? And I just happened to run into them AGAIN??
And what is this, their number is increasing—is that Miss Grippa Baligtaran and Miss Julyrain Arpeggio with them? What are these students of mine from Alpha Section doing in Burnham Park so long past the Christmas and New Year holidays?
“Well, hello there too, young attorneys-to-be,” I said, “I am almost a senior citizen, I need the fresh air, the rowing exercise, sunshine, you know, I need to relax, reduce my stress yada yada—what about you people, what’s your excuse?”
“Oh, we’re just squeezing the last moments of fun from our vacation before we return to the classroom next week, sir. Then we’ll be back to sitting on the edges of our seats as you shuffle classcards again!” Jack said. His mohawk hair is now dyed some shade of prison orange, or correctional yellow.
“Plus were still doing that legal advisory charity work for Laarnee’s bosses at the electric cooperative,” Deema added.
“Yes, you told me three days ago—200 feet high up in the air,” I said, “so how is it going, Miss Laarnee?”
“Not too good, sir, that woman impostor is still doing the rounds, still pretending to be GM,” Laarnee answered.
“Isn’t there a name I can call this woman, so its easier to refer to her?” I asked.
“Oh, didn’t we tell you her name? We’re sorry, sir, her name is Mariribuk,” Laarnee said.
“But if we base it on what she needs to do about her hair, it should be Mari-rebond!” Deema interjected, “anyway, the reason we classmates decided to meet again, sir, is so we can help Laarnee ‘think-tank’ some more on how to neutralize this bitch.”
“Language, Miss Deema!” I cautioned.
“Oh, no, sir! Deema did not come up with that name, I did!” volunteered Grippa Baligtaran, the coffee commercial girl from Natubleng.
“YOU came up with ‘bitch?’ that’s YOUR word?” I scowled.
“It’s not a word, sir, it’s an acronym that stands for Bad In Taste, Character and Hair—B.I T.C.H.!” Grippa explained.
“Why are you people obsessing so much about this woman’s hair??” I asked.
“Because everytime we talk about her, we all end up having a bad hair day!” Deema blurted out, “just look at poor Jack, he’s been dying his mohawk all shades of colors trying to get his hair NOT to look like hers.”
“Why don’t you dye your hair blue?” I suggested, “But then you might end up looking like a cloud from all sides!” I laughed.
“Joni Mitchell or Judy Collins, sir,” Julyrain chimed in.
“What’s that, Miss Arpeggio?”
“When you said Jack’s mohawk would look like a cloud, I remembered Joni Mitchell’s lyrics, ‘I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now…from up and down and still somehow…it’s cloud illusions I recall…I really don’t know clouds at all.’ Joni Mitchell wrote that in 1968, sir, although she let Judy Collins record it first in 1969.”
“Riiight…” I said, wondering—how can this girl young enough to be my daughter know so much about music from MY era?
Then Juan spoke, “We wanted to meet somewhere Mariribuk can’t spy on us, so we thought of meeting in a boat in the middle of a lake. Ambuklao is too far, so we settled for Burnham Lake. Besides, Jack here is feeling sentimental about missing his maritime roots.”
“Jack’s maritime roots? This jackass is from Bauko, it’s 200 kilometers from the nearest coastline,” I said.
“Yeah, but Jack is ‘pinaglihi sa bisukol’ sir,” Deema said, “anyway, we’d be honored if you would join so we could all be in the same boat, so to speak.”
“Oh, no, no, no—I am NOT paying for eight people again this time,” I said, recalling Deema’s quick heist on me at the ferriswheel, “this time, I am totally standing my ground, I am only paying for ONE!”
“How did you know that’s the rule for group rates, sir?” Deema said as she snatched the money from my hands again, “ONE BOAT, please…”
“Now isn’t this elegant, sir? You, our professor, sitting in this beautiful boat with us on a nice warm afternoon?” Deema said as Jack and Juan started rowing.
“Miss Deema, I’m sitting with seven millennials in ripped jeans, each one with a ball of cotton candy in his hand, on a boat with a mermaid on the prow that wears triple-D cup size bra—there’s NOTHING elegant or dignified about this!” I ranted, sending them laughing I had to shout over their voices, “stop stomping your feet, Miss Deema! We’re on a boat with a very thin plywood floor!”
Finally, they settled down to pursue their ulterior motive—to pick their professor’s brain “gratis et amore” unless, of course, I resisted which I had every intention to do.
“We need more information sir, more sound arguments, more legal ammunition to fight the forces of darkness,” Kata said, clearly conditioning my mind to cooperate fully.
“Oh, really? Well, I have some bad news for you people. I’m done enabling law students who really know more than I do and are just using me as a sounding board to test their bold theories. So I’m not taking part in any more brain drain sessions if my life depended on it!”
There, I said it. Sometimes with this Alpha Section class you have to step your foot down otherwise, if they smell blood or sense fear in you, they go for the kill.
“Hmmm…how deep is the water in this lake again, Jack?” Deema asked.
“I don’t know…25…30 feet? At least 25 feet, or as we say ‘lampas tao” Jack answered.
“Is it? 25 to 30 feet! Wow, that’s some pretty deep water to accidentally drown in,” Deema said loud enough that people in other boats must have heard because they all started rowing away from us.
“Uh…did you say you wanted to ask more questions?” I waved the white flag again.
It was Laarnee who spoke, “Sir, it seems it doesn’t matter that Mariribuk’s GM appointment is void. She continues to disrupt our operations because regulators in Manila back her actions.”
“Of course. It’s the way of impunity, not the rule of law,” I said, “fueled by self preservation. You see, knowingly making an invalid appointment is an administrative malfeasance. People who appointed her are in just as much trouble as Mariribuk herself. They’re in too deep now, there’s no turning back. You all assume she and her backers are not aware that her appointment is infirm—of course they are. But so long as no one holds them accountable, why should they care?’”
“Why is law like that, sir? It’s so clear something is wrong, people even agree it’s illegal. Why do they get away with it?” Julyrain lamented.
“Now you see the difference between the active character of the executive branch and the passive nature of the judiciary. Regulators belong to the executive branch, initiative always starts with them. They are prone to engage in corruption. But until someone brings them to court on a specific charge, only then can you determine what law was broken and who must be penalized.”
“Are you saying we can’t do anything about the fact that her appointment is void unless we can catch her red-handed breaking the law? Isn’t she breaking the law just by acting like the GM on an invalid appointment?” Laarnee asked.
“Of course she is, but what is the penalty for pretending to be a GM, can you tell me?” I teased the Alphans. None of them could answer me.
“Then let’s take a different approach,” I said, “tell me the last thing she did while pretending to be the GM.”
“That B.I.T.C.H. talked to the bank to stop honoring the signature of our TRUE general manager and our president. We can’t issue checks supposed to be drawn from our accounts in those banks, sir!” Laarne said.
“And how did that affect your operation?” I
“We missed some payments to our suppliers that were due, we’ll probably miss some more,” Laarnee said.
“What is the basis for your obligation to pay those suppliers according to a given schedule?” I asked.
“A contract, sir” Deema butted in, “all of these payment obligations are ‘ex contractu’ so now the cooperative is in danger of breaching those contracts because of that B.I.T.C.H. talking to the banks and instructing them to prevent the cooperative from fulfilling its obligations to pay !” Deema shrieked, then rolled her eyes.
“Jack, bring out your dilapidated codal,” I called out to Mohawk guy.
“I have it right here, sir!”
“Alright, read to us Article 1314, please.”
“Here it is, sir, Article 1314: any third person who induces another to violate his contract shall be liable for damages to the other contracting party.”
“What did we say in class about juridical persons, like a corporation or a cooperative?” I asked.
“It has a separate personality of its own, sir, distinct and separate from the personality of the individuals who comprise the cooperative,” Kata chimed in.
“Correct,” I said, “so who are the contacting parties to those supply contracts, is it your general manager and president?”
“No, sir, it’s between the cooperative in its own name, and the suppliers. In fact, those contracts were signed by a previous GM and a previous president, not even by my present bosses,” Laarnee said.
“And who is the third party who induced the cooperative to violate its contract with these suppliers by preventing payment?” I asked.
“Mariribuk!!!” they all chorused.
“So who should be liable, for example, to pay that P56-million that was supposed to be paid to those sitio electrification project suppliers that you told me about the last time?”
“Mariribuk!!!” they yelled.
“Okay, now I’m the lawyer of Mariribuk, and I’m going to say ‘I categorically DENY inducing the cooperative to break its contract. I deny that I stopped payment. How can I do that, I’m not even the general manager?” I devil-advocated instantly.
The Alphans were all wide-eyed in astonishment.
“Wait, sir,” Deema said, “are you saying we should study setting up situations where it would be in her best interest to deny being the general manager?”
“Let me answer your question with a question,” I said, “do you think the real general manager would do ANY of the things Mariribuk is doing right now?”
“NO, SIR!” they chorused.
“And why not?” I asked.
“Because all of the actions done by Mariribuk would be illegal EVEN if done by a real, authentic general manager,” Deema said, “I mean that B.I T.C.H. has tampered with official records, falsified public and private instruments, violated bank secrecy laws, violated anti-money laundering laws, disrespected local government units, treated local legislatures with utter contempt, stolen company property, that B.I.T.C.H. even toyed with carnapping at some point!”
“So would you rather expend your energy preaching to the choir, so to speak? Telling everybody who ALREADY know and agree that her appointment is void, that her appointment is void?” I asked the Alphans. They fell quiet.
“Or would you rather be more proactive and start inventorying and documenting all the acts that she is doing which are illegal BECAUSE she did them without authority owing to her invalid appointment?”
“We received some valuable guidance today, classmates,” Deema said, “the only thing sir didn’t say is how when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade—but I think that’s his point.”
“Pretty much,” I said, “just remember, class, when you’re solving any problem, you cannot change the ‘givens’—you have to work your way around it. There’s always more than one way to skin a cat. Even Al Capone eventually ended up in jail on an eleven-year federal prison sentence not for murder, which he committed plenty of, but for tax evasion.”
“I think I get your point, sir,” Laarnee said, “Mariribuk did not just break the law once by usurping authority, she continues to break the law EVERYDAY but we got so hung up only on the invalidity of her appointment.”
“Precisely,” I said, “Mariribuk may have been able to pull strings to withdraw those P56-million from the bank but EVEN IF she had been the REAL GM, that would still be something a REAL GM cannot do, is it?”
“No, sir. That is technical malversation!” Grippa chimed in.
“Yes it is, but more than that, where is it provided that this P56-million can only be used for one purpose, which is to fund sitio electrification–is it in the Revised Penal Code? The Civil Code? Where?” I asked.
“It’s in a SPECIAL LAW, sir, the law on the national electrification program,” Juan chimed in.
“So if you violate any provision of a special law, what kind of wrongful act did you do, Miss Deema?” I wanted a SURE answer!
“It’s ‘mala prohibita’ sir,” Deema slamdunked the answer I was trying to get.
“That’s right. So wherever Mariribuk put the money, and whatever her good intentions are for ‘safekeeping’ it, does it matter? Will it make any difference, Miss Kata?”
“No sir, not when it involves an act ‘malum prohibitum” Kata said.
“Because in acts malum prohibitum…?” I cued my students and they all yelled together: “INTENT IS IMMATERIAL!!!
My Alpha Section class was suddenly re-energized, and started talking about launching an intensive research and monitoring of Mariribuk’s every action henceforth.
As the boat turned around and inched closer back to the pier, I learned my lesson from the ferriswheel experience. I clambered over people to the front of the boat to make sure I would be the first to disembark. As soon as the boat touched the wharf, I jumped out of the boat, landing on the pier deck and moved quickly as far away from the edge of the water as I can.
When I looked back, the boat wasn’t even moored! It was back out on the lake, with my students waving at me from the water, “We’re sorry Prof! The boat just drifted away from the pier as soon as you got off!”
“Can you swim, sir??” Deema yelled.
Oh, for Christ’s sake, forget it!
About the Author
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”
About Images: Some of the images used in the articles are from the posts in Atty. Joel Rodriguez Dizon’s Facebook account, and/or Facebook groups and pages he manages or/and member of.