Lobotomy

A friend of a friend of a friend came to me for help: a sort of legal advice. The school where she’s teaching charged her of gross misconduct and she is in danger of being dismissed. She was required to answer for the charges within 48 hours.

You see, when our whole neighborhood came to know that I was in law school everyone would come to me for my legal my opinion. For instance, I was asked about chacha, impeachment, about a fake president, and even the James Yap-Hope affair. An octogenarian relative once asked me about annulment. Yes, he is seriously considering annulling his marriage. My drinking buddies was delighted when I finished law school: “Kahit mangrape o pumatay na ko… may lawyer na akong kaibigan.” As if I entered law school in order to start a career on freeing all criminals.

I digress. Anyway, I told her she does not need any legal advice for as long as she is not yet dismissed. What they're asking her is only an explanation. I told her to write the details of what transpired according to her recollection and that there is nothing to worry about if she thinks she is innocent of any misconduct.

The truth will set you free, I added. I was leaning towards the idea that she is falsely charged because she came to me in copious tears as if she was auditioning for soap opera. I was in foul mood and I was a bit annoyed that I had to restrain my self from turning into Gladys Reyes or I might slap her and do a confrontational scene and then we might engage in hair pulling.

“Uhm… what if saying the truth might bring me to jail me and actually fire me.”

According to her, she collected a contribution from her students amounting to 20 thou plus for a field trip that never happened. She failed to surrender it to the registrar. She spent it thinking it was her own money.

Apparently, she commingled the fund with her own money so that she was so confused which was which. When she went shopping the money was so stupid enough not to tell her that it wasn’t her money.

“What am I going to do?”

I wanted to give her a gun so that she would shoot herself. In that way she would do a big favor to humanity, of not polluting the gene pool. I pity her offspring.

“Please, help me. I can’t afford to lose my job”.

I was thinking of a possible defense she could plead. An extreme emergency for example, like, say her baby was dying, or she went to patch the hole in the ozone layer or went to Africa to clamor against the practice of clitoridectomy (although the most plausible excuse would be a lobotomy. The doctor had to perform a lobotomy to cure her terminal condition. At least there was something that could explain her price-winning idiocy). Using an ad misercordiam argument would help after all these administrators are human too. At least the dismissal penalty could be downgraded to mere suspension, if they feel mercy and compassion. She could still retain her job.

I secretly wished she would be fired. This people should at least take responsibility for their actions and learn from it.

“Be careful”, Dostoyevsky said in The Idiot, “the world is full of wolves”