XU Law seniors reflect on their role in serving society.

By Reynel Cetrien Ligan

The Xavier University College of Law and the XU Center for Legal Assistance aim to produce law graduates who are conscientious leaders, catalysts, and compassionate thinkers. As the students go through the rigors of law school, they are taught in the context of experience, reflection and action, an approach anchored on the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm.

Accordingly, built into the XU Law curriculum is the Clinical Legal Education Program, which exposes students to community outreach activities that help them ground their learning.

In September, the students went around different city high schools for a series of lectures in observance of the Crime Prevention Month. They shared about the criminal justice system to high school students who took in with enthusiasm their new learning.

This October, it was the turn of the senior Law students to reflect on that experience.

“It’s an opportunity to share in the thrust of being persons for others,” was how the students summarized their experience.

Besides, by being of service to others, they are able pay forward the knowledge that their professors have generously shared with them.

Rolland Collado, Kirsten Calvo, Chesca Banal and Haniya Guro collectively said that educating people about the law is a way of empowering them.

Along those lines, Xandra Ebdalin, Xyza Foronda, Shivaun Tigulo and Noelle Vedad expressed that by helping young people become aware of their rights, they are able to take part in making positive change happen in their communities.

For Johannes Alaba, Alyanna Chang, Fender Lumbatan and Dence Rondon, there is something more to lawyering than litigating and defending cases in court.

There is a very wide scope to how we can impart our knowledge and going to court should not be the end, they said.