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Atty. Fernandez with wife Delilah and step-daughter Genevieve. |
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A native of Gibgos, Caramoan in Camarines Sur, Atty. Fernandez has always wanted to serve his townmates but destiny found him fighting for survival in the metropolitan jungle. |
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At only 26 years old, even before he could take the bar examinations and emboldened solely by his idealism that the youth should have a role in governance he was already in the thick of the political arena as candidate for mayor of Caramoan, Camarines Sur, the youngest to dare to run for such elective position in the whole province and perhaps in the entire Bicol Region. He knew that it was an uphill battle against then incumbent Mayor Cecenio S. Padua who was known for his mastery of the intricacies of local politics but he was undaunted.
It was an unreachable dream, sorely lacking as he was in the indispensable political machinery and more importantly in campaign funds. But it was precisely on the issue of unabashed vote-buying already widely practiced at that time that he was impelled to run. He wanted to prove that money should not be the be-all and end-all of anyone’s aspiration to serve the people. But he was to realize that it would need more than just one man and more just one occasion to wean away the voters from the ugly habit at tugging at candidates for money every election time.
The frustration did not, however, dampen his desire to serve. Immediately after his unsuccessful political bid he volunteered to teach for free at the time that barangay high schools were just being opened and one was being eyed for his own barangay of Gibgos in Caramoan. Together with the late Bonifacio Borebor, Sr., then Caramoan District Supervisor, and Dominador Alarkon, Sr., then head teacher of the Gibgos Elementary School, he worked out a way to start the Gibgos Barangay High School with him as one of the volunteer teachers. He taught for two years without collecting a single centavo until he decided to go back to Manila to review for the bar examinations which he passed in 1977.
Gibgos High School has since become an stable secondary school and the initial success had spurred other barangays in the remote coastal town to try to put up their own barangay high schools using the Gibgos experience as the model. Today six other barangay high schools are thriving well in strategic areas within the municipality.
After passing the bar examinations he immediately went into private practice in Metro Manila but even while he had good-paying clients he was devoting more time for indigent litigants mostly his townmates or fellow Bicolanos locked in legal problems and virtually lost in metropolitan jungle and who had only Atty. Fernandez to turn to, and he served them gratis et amore. He at the same time organized his barriomates in the Big City and went on to pool their resources to build the present Gibgos Barangay Church, one of the most imposing structures of its kind in the Caramoan Peninsula in concrete and marble.
But after all the years of philanthropic work he realized that he was getting old with hardly any security should he opt to end his private practice.
Sometime in 1990 he was introduced to another lawyer named Benjamin Abalos. They became close associates such that when Abalos was elected mayor of Mandaluyong City he was taken in to take charge of the City Attorney’s Office.
It was not to be a walk in the park, so to say. Problems and complications arose after the elder Abalos ceased to be mayor (he is now Chairman of the Commision on Elections) and his son, Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos, Jr., won the post vacated by his father. He was admittedly not as close to the son as to the father and had occasionally differed with him. Metropolitan Manila, as one must discern, is in itself a jungle full of predators, swarming with intriguers. One must know how to survive in the metropolitan jungle as one must survive in an authentic jungle.
Atty. Fernandez sensed correctly that he had to be tactful not to openly antagonize policies while standing firmly on his ground on purely legal issues. This has always been his guideline everytime he disagrees with the City Mayor up to now that the mayorship has passed on to Mayor Neptali Gonzales, II. As everyone knows some politicians would try to bend the law or circumvent it to appease supporters; that is a reality everywhere in this country. Mayor Gonzales is said to be running again for congressman which would mean another period of adjustment for whoever would sit as next mayor.
It is this predicament that made him refuse to accept the position of City Legal Officer which is co-terminus with the appointing authority. Under the present set-up wherein his appointment is merely assistant City Legal Officer but for all intents and purposes the City Legal Officer, he could continue to be vocal with his opinion without fear of being unceremoniously eased out until he retires four years from now.
Atty. Fernandez is the eldest son of the late Francisco Arcilla Fernandez and Beatrice Alferez Naa of Gibgos, Caramoan, Camarines Sur.
