While establishing herself as a force to reckon with in this year’s Binibining Pilipinas search, Bea Patricia ‘Patch’ Magtanong, a University of the Philippines’ College of Law graduate, fulfilled her other dream of becoming a full-pledged lawyer, after passing the Bar Examinations. Magtanong followed in the footsteps of her father, a lawyer, whom she grew up idolizing.
The Bataan beauty, who also has an undergraduate diploma in Business Economics at UP-Diliman, may be facing the newly crowned Miss USA 2019 Cheslie Kryst, a 28-year-old African American lawyer if she snares the Miss Philippines-Universe title up for grab on coronation night of Bb. Pilipinas pageant on June 9.
Like Magtanong, Kryst practices civil litigation for a law firm and does free legal work for prisoners who may be sentenced unjustly, helping them to seek reduced punishments.
As a Law graduate, I visit several prisons in the city and I also work to handle flights of poor and indigents. I work with NGOs to give legal assistance or training to prisoners. I teach them the legal process on the flow of their cases and offer guidance to the inmates, who are mostly cannot afford to have lawyers,” the eloquent 24-year-old model said during an interview at the photo-walk activity of the national pageant.
I teach them to know their rights even if they are convicted. Also, I work with NGOs to rehabilitate prisoners for release, so they could find a job, would not go back to their criminal ways and to return to their communities as useful members of society,” she added.