Acceptance Speech on behalf of the winners for the Dissertation Writing Contest at the FLP Awards Ceremony held at the Manila Polo Club on September 16, 2026.
Good evening, everyone.
To the Foundation and former Chief Justice Panganiban, its dearest partners, the Board of Judges, the legal and business communities, and to every guest present: it is a pleasure and an honor for me to be with all of you tonight on this special occasion.
I want to express how honored and humbled we are to be selected as the winners of this year’s dissertation writing contest. And as much as I want to talk about how beautifully written and competitive the works of my co-winners are, our time compels me to focus on a much more important matter.
This is about the matter of “inspiration”. Thus, I want you to reflect: “Do you still remember a certain moment when a sudden charge of inspiration led you to write something passionately?”
In my case, my entire legal education has been instrumental in helping me develop a love for legal writing. I have met exemplary professors who espoused the importance of writing and even quipped that “lawyers must first be good writers, then good speakers next”. I have read impactful and creative legal decisions – and the faces of some of those ponentes are also present here – which showed me how our justices are also creatures of creativity in the art of reasoning. There is also the presence of our mentors; in my case, it was Atty. Oliver Reyes, who showed full support for my authorship. And I must not forget how the Foundation’s Dissertation contest and its online library made the works of previous winners accessible to the public. All of these instances of inspiration led me, a mere individual, to dream that writing should be a creative and illuminating exercise.
That being said, let me repeat my earlier question: “Can you still remember that moment when a sudden charge of inspiration led you to write something passionately?” I hope so, and I ask that you hold on to that moment.
In this period in which we find ourselves, reservations have been express about AI, especially in the context of how it affects legal education, or education as a whole. We can’t help but be scared by the fact that thinking and writing creatively are being fully delegated to machines at our expense. And this is where the persons and entities who provide inspiration come in. They are not mere insulators of our fear of AI; they are our lifeline that preserves the beauty of human thinking and creativity. And the Foundation’s programs, such as this Dissertation Writing contest, successfully fill this noble role.
For all these reasons, I encourage everyone to plant seeds of inspiration in their daily lives.
Again, on behalf of all the winners of the dissertation writing contest, thank you so much. We could not have gotten where we are today without your seeds of inspiration.
Thank you.
