MANGKOKOLUM!

In a legalese tangle and strangle IF memory serves, filmmaker-turned-lawmaker Manuel “Lito” Lapid had crafted the measure that provides copies of court proceedings to a needy litigant who’ll likely bleed his pockets dry pursuing or defending his case… and who’ll likely get his brains tied in clots and knots over whatever such court documents purport to explain. The language of truth is plain and homey as Marcellinus Ammianus would have it, but legalese can be as binding as a strangle of pubic hairs… why, common sense can hardly squeeze into that density, a train of thought wobbling with the weight of passengers crammed to the rafters, plied off as herd to the slaughter. Maybe, Ammianus was obliquely hinting that legalese is a vehicle for lies and mayhem. As we use words, words use us in turn. And such usage that cloaks and chokes rather than sheds light cannot dispel the contempt that the man in the street feels toward the judiciary. Case in point. On September 2010, Ricardo Silverio J...