Manila, Philippines – The Philippine Trial Lawyers Association Inc. (PTLA), an organization of litigation lawyers, through its president, Atty. Pete S. Principe, urged the people, particularly active law practitioners, to exercise intellectual and emotional maturity in addressing the controversies involving former President now Pampanga Rep. Gloria M. Arroyo.
“We must avoid resort to rhetorical excesses, such as offering one’s head or part of one’s head or part of one’s privates, as argument gambit, because they needlessly inflame personal animosities and even group rivalries and confuse rather than clarify the real issues that need to be resolved,” the PTLA said.
The PTLA believes that “these controversies can reasonably be handled by our government institutions and that what we are witnessing now is simply the normal operation of the government system, the separation of powers, with its checks-and-balances mechanism at work in our State.”
“We must not be unduly bothered by dire forecasts of a looming constitutional crisis, being spread either by ignorant alarmists or professional political destabilizers,” Principe said.