The Manuel L. Quezon University (MLQU) and The Asia Foundation (TAF) entered into a Memorandum of Agreement that would establish the MLQU Law Clinic which will serve as a bridge to help people, particularly indigent members of the community, access to justice through competent legal assistance.
The agreement is part of TAF’s Legal Aid Project in partnership with the Supreme Court, the Legal Education Board, and the Philippine Association of Law Schools to strengthen the rule of law in the Philippines through strategic reforms that promote efficiency in the administration of justice, build the capacity of justice actors, and increase access to justice.
Through the said Law Clinic, MLQU hopes to benefit from TAF’s decades of experience in increasing access to justice. Under the agreement, TAF provides not only mentoring and training, but also resources and a referral network with other legal aid clinics and partner organizations.The Law Clinic will primarily be serving consumer complaints along with other marginalized sectors, such as persons deprived of liberties, women and children, and members of the LGBTQ community.
The MLQU Clinic will be highly beneficial to the school’s law students because it will provide them experiential training by exposing them to actual legal problems and injustices in the grassroots.
In turn, MLQU will help TAF in monitoring and assessing the progress of the Legal Aid Project by inviting it to the legal aid clinic-related activities of MLQU and thereafter sharing documentation of said activities to The Asia Foundation.
The signing event was held virtually on November 23, 2021 and attended by Sam Chittick, Country Representative of TAF, and members of the TAF Legal Aid Team: Atty. Chudney Ngo, Legal Specialist; Atty. Rueul Realin, Program Officer; and Veronica Cruz, Assistant Program Officer.
Signing for MLQU was Atty. Paquito N. Ochoa Jr., President of MLQU, witnessed by Atty. Ferdinand Negre, Dean of the School of Law, Ms. Victoria Dayao, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Atty. Ria Corazon Golez-Cabrera, Vice Dean of the School of Law, and Atty. Daniel Fordan, Program Coordinator of the School of Law.
