Once upon a pleasant moon, when my childhood friend was in law proper—how many years back he can’t remember—he was playing with words after coming home from his 8:30 p.m. class in Mendiola.
That was the time letters and telegrams were the trend among the youth, a valley he remains thankful for. It was the month of February, too.
I can imagine his gratitude. Assuming there were mobiles then, even at one peso per text message, what he sent to a weekly magazine which granted and sustained the petition and published it, would have made a hefty dent in his student allowance.
I am reproducing, with his permission, the substance of the letter. But he has asked me to use another name in the salutation, to which I said “granted” as he handed out the published page, yellowed by the years.
My dear Maria Mia,
Petitioner, by himself, and to your honorable court, respectfully submits for your consideration this petition for your review.
At the outset, petitioner asks that you allow him his constitutional right to be heard. He assures you that everything in his petition is devoid of criminal intent and the venom of malicious premeditation.
On the contrary, he rises with the loftiest motives because he feels it is his duty to confess to you one undeniable fact that you may have unconsciously disregarded all along.
He has always wanted to keep this fact within him always, petitioner admits. He could have easily done so.
But his conscience continues to remind him that he should not unjustly enrich himself at the expense of another. He now finds it enlightening and wise to unburden himself to you since you are the sole obligee of the petitioner as sole obligor.
You will please recall that unforgettable July noon when petitioner and you first met. The day petitioner and you entered into a contract, stipulating clauses and terms alike which were of course not contrary to law, morals, good customs, public order, or public policy.
And the time has come: the obligation is already due and demandable.
Please allow petitioner to offer the following statements by way of bringing the issue at bar. His silence for the past months on this should never give ground for you to put him in delay. He was never in default.
There was a moratorium then, if this honorable court will please recall. Alongside this, there could not have been any dolo.
Petitioner informs this honorable court that he cannot afford to let you lose by prescription the right arising from this juridical necessity to do, and consequently to give.
Petitioner earnestly prays you won’t make him believe that you are in mora accipiendi.
If you must know, petitioner cannot live by assigning this noble affection to someone else. To a new acquaintance. To a stranger. To whoever.
Petitioner, if it may please you, would be committing a breach of the contract if he did. Let no third person make a mockery of petitioner’s and your individual rights and duties. And let no Adam’s great grand grand grandson or even Eve’s great grand grand granddaughter attack the validity of the same.
Petitioner is offering a love that is not inferior to that you probably have on your mind, by observation of other people, by your readings or whatever.
Rest assured, since the moment petitioner’s eyes and your eyes kissed each other, he has taken care of the love with the diligence of a good and respectable family man.
Petitioner promises his singular devotion, his loyalty, his faithful dedication, his deepest respect, his unqualified and unconditional fidelity.
As a guaranty or security to the thing he has delivered and the things he has promised, he hereby swears, on this 14th day of February, in the year of our Lord, and of the Republic of the Philippines…that everything delivered and said is true and correct.
That there was no falsification whatsoever.
Wherefore, the things above considered, petitioner respectfully prays that the petition be given due course and, after deliberation, a judgment be rendered in his favor, with costs against any pseudo-obligor.
He further prays for such other relief as may be deemed just and equitable under the above premises.
Respectfully submitted,
(sgd.) Dalluyon T. Amianan