PHILIPPINE
LAW AND SOCIETY REVIEW
political opponent, Julio Nalundasan. He won that on appeal, arguing the case himself before the Supreme Court. Justice Jose Laurel commented: “to send this young man to jail would be to deny the country of a brilliant lawyer.� Marcos was always very aware of the power of law and the idea of justice. So he played on the desire of the people for a better society in which they could receive justice. He was able to convince many of his plans for a New Society, at least for awhile. But in the end he was found out. GB: Were the progressive lawyers organized in those days, what was their institutional base for resistance to the regime? RC: There was the Civil Liberties Union of the Philippines. That was the main organization. Senator Jose Diokno, one of the leading lawyers in the country, was the President. He was detained at the very beginning of Martial Law. Later, a number of other organizations emerged. GB: I believe the Civil Liberties Union had been formed in the 1930s, and that throughout the 1930s and into the late 1940s and 1950s, there were progressive lawyers working to protect the masses. I believe, especially on behalf of the peasants and their unions, against the landlords and the state in the aftermath of the Second World War, and the transition to independence. RC: Those were very difficult times for the progressive movements, the workers, fisherfolk, and especially the peasants, as they were hammered by the military, with the support of the Americans who feared a communist uprising and the reconstitution of Philippine society. There also were terrible actions against the people by the private armies of the landlords.
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