Bar No.1 on rape case: It’s about duty to client
By Volt Contreras -- Inquirer
ONE of the lawyers bent on proving “Nicole” wrong is the bar topnotcher of 2005—a promising legal eagle with an impeccable political pedigree.
At 25 and with a Friendster account, Joan Alvarez de Venecia could have easily fit in the barkada (group) of the 23-year-old Filipino complainant in the Subic rape case—that is, had the two young women met under other, friendlier, circumstances.
“This should not be a gender issue, and it doesn’t mean I’m going against my fellow women,” she said, stressing that off-court issues “shouldn’t really matter” for lawyers who had a duty to their clients.
Joan—whose father, lawyer Antonio de Venecia, is a brother of the Speaker of the House—is part of the battery of Filipino lawyers defending the four US Marines whom Nicole had charged with rape before the Makati Regional Trial Court.
Her law firm, Sycip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan, represents Lance Cpl. Keith Silkwood, and she mainly serves as an assistant to Silkwood’s lead lawyer, Jose Justiniano.
In an interview yesterday, the neophyte lawyer who started attending the rape hearings only on Sept. 11 admitted to already feeling the heat in the highly charged legal battle.
Just last Friday, she said, two of Nicole’s women supporters in the courtroom told her upfront: “Sayang ka, babae ka pa naman, at bar topnotcher pa (What a waste, you are a woman, too, a bar topnotcher at that).”
She said members of Task Force Subic Rape, who were then distributing leaflets on the occasion of Nicole’s 23rd birthday, were also saying snide things but not directly, as well as giving her dagger looks.
Part of the job
“That’s already an attack on my person and painful for me as a woman. But as a professional, I take it as part of the job,” De Venecia said.
Although she had been working on the case much earlier, De Venecia only began to be visible in court halfway through the three-month-old trial, when the defense started its presentation of evidence.
Being an assisting lawyer, she is often seen seated behind Justiniano and helping him sort out documents. She has yet to address the court herself, but obviously relishes just being there.
No. 1
“This is valuable training for first-year lawyers like me. You don’t get these things from books,” said the rookie, who obtained her law degree from the University of the Philippines but took her undergraduate course at the Ateneo de Manila University.
Like Nicole, she’s an Atenean, De Venecia noted. (Nicole is a graduate of the Ateneo de Davao.)
In the 2005 bar exam results that were announced in March, Joan was at the top of the passers’ heap with a score of 87.2.
As a student, she was most active in campus debates. (The anti-US groups now rallying behind Nicole may be pleased to hear that, as early as high school, De Venecia was “not exactly a fan of US foreign policy, especially its military intervention overseas.”)
Behind the scenes, De Venecia has mainly done legal research not only for Silkwood but also for his co-accused, Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith.
She once acted as “a private prosecutor” conducting a mock cross-examination of Silkwood inside the US Embassy.
No opinion
She also had a role in preparing the defense panel’s expert witness, Dr. Teresita Sanchez, for the “expected questions” of the prosecution during cross-examination.
And no, there has never been an occasion that she discussed the Subic rape case with her uncle “JDV” (Speaker Jose de Venecia).
“I haven’t personally met Nicole, and I have no opinion of her. And as a woman and a young lawyer, I would be the first to condemn the barbaric act of rape whether the victim—or perpetrator—is a Filipino or of another nationality,” she said.
But then, added the young compañera, “in my personal opinion, our clients are telling the truth.”
At 25 and with a Friendster account, Joan Alvarez de Venecia could have easily fit in the barkada (group) of the 23-year-old Filipino complainant in the Subic rape case—that is, had the two young women met under other, friendlier, circumstances.
“This should not be a gender issue, and it doesn’t mean I’m going against my fellow women,” she said, stressing that off-court issues “shouldn’t really matter” for lawyers who had a duty to their clients.
Joan—whose father, lawyer Antonio de Venecia, is a brother of the Speaker of the House—is part of the battery of Filipino lawyers defending the four US Marines whom Nicole had charged with rape before the Makati Regional Trial Court.
Her law firm, Sycip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan, represents Lance Cpl. Keith Silkwood, and she mainly serves as an assistant to Silkwood’s lead lawyer, Jose Justiniano.
In an interview yesterday, the neophyte lawyer who started attending the rape hearings only on Sept. 11 admitted to already feeling the heat in the highly charged legal battle.
Just last Friday, she said, two of Nicole’s women supporters in the courtroom told her upfront: “Sayang ka, babae ka pa naman, at bar topnotcher pa (What a waste, you are a woman, too, a bar topnotcher at that).”
She said members of Task Force Subic Rape, who were then distributing leaflets on the occasion of Nicole’s 23rd birthday, were also saying snide things but not directly, as well as giving her dagger looks.
Part of the job
“That’s already an attack on my person and painful for me as a woman. But as a professional, I take it as part of the job,” De Venecia said.
Although she had been working on the case much earlier, De Venecia only began to be visible in court halfway through the three-month-old trial, when the defense started its presentation of evidence.
Being an assisting lawyer, she is often seen seated behind Justiniano and helping him sort out documents. She has yet to address the court herself, but obviously relishes just being there.
No. 1
“This is valuable training for first-year lawyers like me. You don’t get these things from books,” said the rookie, who obtained her law degree from the University of the Philippines but took her undergraduate course at the Ateneo de Manila University.
Like Nicole, she’s an Atenean, De Venecia noted. (Nicole is a graduate of the Ateneo de Davao.)
In the 2005 bar exam results that were announced in March, Joan was at the top of the passers’ heap with a score of 87.2.
As a student, she was most active in campus debates. (The anti-US groups now rallying behind Nicole may be pleased to hear that, as early as high school, De Venecia was “not exactly a fan of US foreign policy, especially its military intervention overseas.”)
Behind the scenes, De Venecia has mainly done legal research not only for Silkwood but also for his co-accused, Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith.
She once acted as “a private prosecutor” conducting a mock cross-examination of Silkwood inside the US Embassy.
No opinion
She also had a role in preparing the defense panel’s expert witness, Dr. Teresita Sanchez, for the “expected questions” of the prosecution during cross-examination.
And no, there has never been an occasion that she discussed the Subic rape case with her uncle “JDV” (Speaker Jose de Venecia).
“I haven’t personally met Nicole, and I have no opinion of her. And as a woman and a young lawyer, I would be the first to condemn the barbaric act of rape whether the victim—or perpetrator—is a Filipino or of another nationality,” she said.
But then, added the young compañera, “in my personal opinion, our clients are telling the truth.”
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