Marvic M.V.F. Leonen
Summary of Curriculum Vitae
As of December 2007
Marvic M.V.F. Leonen is a Professor of the College of Law of the University of the Philippines. He graduated with an AB Economic degree, magna cum laude, from the School of Economics in 1983. In the ranking of students of the College of Law in 1987, he graduated fourth with a general weighted average of 1.76. He signed the Rolls of Attorneys at the Supreme Court on May 28, 1988. He also earned a Master of Laws degree from the Columbia Law School of the Columbia University in New York.
As member of the faculty
Prof. Leonen joined the faculty of the College of Law in 1989 as a professorial lecturer in Philippine Indigenous Law. He became assistant professor during the term of Dean Pacifico Agabin and started to do work as an academic administrator under the term of Dean Merlin M. Magallona. In 2000, he was invited to join the UP System to act as its University General Counsel. In March 2005, he became the first Vice President for Legal Affairs of the University of the Philippines System.
Professor Leonen has consistently carried a teaching load that was equivalent to or higher than what was required. His has taught twenty (20) different subjects in the law school including a stint as the director of the clinical legal education program of the College of Law. These subjects are:
Civil Procedure,
Evidence,
Criminal Procedure,
Special Proceedings,
Remedial Law Practicum;
Legal Research and Writing;
Legal Profession,
Constitutional Law I,
Constitutional Law II
Contemporary Problems in Constitutional Law,
Law and Society,
Legal Method
Contemporary Commercial Law Problems: Law and Economics
Contemporary Commercial Law Problems: International Economic Law
Contemporary Commercial Law Problems: Regulation of FDI
Intellectual Property Law;
Agrarian Reform Law;
Philippine Indigenous Law;
Natural Resource Law
Public International Law
Professor Leonen’s teaching competence is not only acknowledged in the College of Law but also in other institutions as well. He taught Environmental Law as well as International Human Rights Law in two masters programs of the Miriam College. He has also taught International Trade and Finance as well as Transnational Crimes in the same institution. He was also brought in as a professorial lecturer at the Philippine Judicial Academy (PHILJA) and is now professorial lecturer of its Constitutional Law Department. He has lectured to justices of the Court of Appeals, judges of the Regional and Metropolitan/ Municipal Trial Courts and aspirants to the bench. He has also lectured on special topics in Constitutional Law, Property and Environmental Law and Philippine Indigenous Law to both bench and bar. He has consistently rated high in evaluations of his effectivity as a lecturer and resource speaker.
Prof. Leonen also lectured on a whole course on the regulation of foreign direct investment for the International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) and on Banking Laws for officers of the METROBANK.
Professor Leonen has extensively lectured and acted as resource speaker in other national and international forums. Among others, his work has brought him to Hongkong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Spain, Netherlands, Australia, Estonia and the United Kingdom. For instance, in the United States, he has lectured in various academic forums such as the Johns Hopkins School in Washington and the Hastings Law School in San Francisco. In Shanghai, China, he lectured on the precautionary principle and its relation to the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Treaty of the WTO in a forum sponsored by the Asian Law Institutes Network. He has also presented UP’s Intellectual Property Policies before the Asian University Network in Chulalongkorn University, Bankok, Thailand.
Within the College of Law, Prof. Leonen has served as member of the Admissions Committee, the Scholarship Committee and acted as Chair of the Electronic Law School Project, Board of Judges of the Philippine Law Journal, and the Appeals Committee. He has also served as member of various ad hoc committees created by Deans or by the faculty. Currently, he is also treasurer of the UP College of Law Faculty Development Foundation.
As practicing lawyer
Prof. Leonen has also appeared before MTCs and RTCs in many areas in the Philippines. He has also litigated in various quasi-judicial bodies including the Department of Agrarian Reform Adjudicatory Board (DARAB), the Panel of Arbitrators of the Mines Geosciences Bureau (MGB), the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), the Commission on Elections (en banc). He has also orally argued before the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court en banc.
For instance, he argued before the Supreme Court en banc for indigenous communities as petitioner in Cruz v NCIP (constitutionality of the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act), for a B’laan farming community as petitioner in La Bugal v DENR (constitutionality of the mining law), for members of the minority in the House of Representatives in David et al v Arroyo et al (constitutionality of Proclamation 1017), and for a political party as intervenor in Lambino et al v COMELEC et al (constitutionality of an alleged initiative to amend the constitution).
Prof. Leonen has litigated on other policy determining cases to the Supreme Court. For instance, he acted as counsel for a farmers community to uphold the validity of a restraining order issued by the Commission on Human Rights in CEPZA v CHR et al. Also, he acted as lawyers for the petitioners who were members of the Baguio community wanting the BCDA to pay taxes in JHAB Peoples Alliance v BCDA. He also took the cudgels for a national farmer leader in Tadeo v Court of Appeals. This year, he has assisted poor but hypertensive patients seek intervention in a case involving a hypertensive drug, assisted breastfeeding mothers bring an intervention in a case involving regulations on infant milk formula and assisting doctors and concerned individuals assert provisions relating to tobacco regulation.
With respect to its rule making powers, Prof. Leonen has made presentations to the Supreme Court en banc on matters relating to access to justice.
Prof. Leonen has participated in various legislative committee hearings and has acted as consultant to some members of House of Representative and the Senante. He was instrumental in the draft of major pieces of legislation.
Prof. Leonen’s expertise also includes working with foundations. He assisted in the facilitation of a debt swap arrangement between Switzerland and the Philippines. This resulted in the creation of the Foundation for a Sustainable Society Inc. (FSSI), a foundation that provides loans and grants to deserving social entrepreneurs.
Research work
In spite of the tremendous demands on his time, he still managed to produce at least twenty six (27) papers, articles and books within the past fifteen years. Some of his works also reached critical academic audiences. For instance, his paper on Harnessing Creativity is in the reading pack of the International Human Rights Program of the Columbia Law School in New York. His participation in the opposition to the confirmation of then secretary designate Antonio Cerilles of the Deparment of Environment and Natural Resources was made a case study by Dr. Ernesto Garilao for his subjects at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).
This year alone, he is a paper writer on Agrarian Justice (commissioned by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies), on a Framework of advocacy on Regional Trade Agreements with special focus on the Japan Philippine Economic Partnership Agreement (for OXFAM UK), on the Historical Context of Philippine Regulation (for Partnership and Advocacy for Competitiveness and Trade), co-writer for the CEDAW Legal Education and Gender Integrated Syllabus project of UNIFEM), review of mining policy (Foundation for a Philippine Environment). He is also currently developing case studies that will be used for training of the Ombudsman’s lawyers.
Prof. Leonen’s latest papers within the past two years include the following:
1. “Defining Regulatory Spaces: Precautionary Principles, Regulatory Diversity and the SPS Treaty of the WTO Agreement” (unpublished)
2. “The Irony of Social Legislation: Reflections on Formal and Informal Justice Interfaces and Indigenous Peoples in the Philippines” (UNDP, unpublished)
3. “Seeking the Norm: Reflections on Land Rights Policy and Indigenous Peoples Rights” (refereed, IWGIA and LRCKSK)
In 2007 Prof. Leonen has also published two lead articles in the UP Forum and a photo essay on political ecology in the Women In Action Journal (ISIS).
Academic Administrative Experience
Prof. Leonen has had extensive administrative experience both as an academic administrator within the University of the Philippines.
As head of the Information and Publication Division of the Law Center, he attempted to reintroduce the magazine “Law and Society” and negotiate training on media work for his staff. As director of the Office of Legal Aid, he assisted in streamlining its procedures, improved the orientation of the students, recruited and structured the supervision coming from supervising lawyers. He also introduced several organizations and networks that enabled the students to participate in high profile public interest cases. At any given time, he was in charge of the management of four administrative staff, about one hundred law interns and anywhere from six to eight supervising lawyers.
As University General Counsel and Vice President for Legal Affairs, he supervises the proper functioning not only of the legal services at the University of the Philippine System level but also at the Constituent University level as well. The University of the Philippines System is comprised of seven constituent universities spread in 12 campuses nationwide. It owns and manages 24,000 hectares of land. It also has about 53,000 students, 4,000 faculty members and REPS and 7900 administrative personnel. The UP System also supervises the Philippine General Hospital through the administration of UP Manila.
In spite of low government salaries, he has been able to recruit young but experienced alumni of the College of Law of the UP and facilitated the disposition and effective handling of requests coming from the various system constituent units. This includes review of all contracts of the University, participation in the monitoring of the procurement system.
The University General Counsel, under the leadership of Prof. Leonen, has issued a total of two thousand twenty two (2022) legal opinions on various matters affecting the university as an academic institution, government instrumentality and as a corporate entity.
Prof. Leonen led a committee that drafted the University’s Intellectual Property Policy as well as its Acceptable Use Policy for the use of Information Communication Technologies. He has sat in countless working groups on the use of the University’s assets. He is currently co-chair of a system committee to review the policies on intellectual dishonesty; co-chair of the University Union Management Consultative Body representing management; co-chair of the management panel to negotiate collective negotiating agreements with the two unions of the University.
As a student of law
Prof. Leonen put himself through the College of Law through a Chief Justice Fred Ruiz Castro Scholarship and his work as a graduate assistant of Dean Merlin M. Magallona at the International Studies Institute of the Philippines (ISIP) of the UP Law Center. Prof. Leonen was also once the research assistant of Prof. Haydee B. Yorac.
He was active in extra curricular activities while maintaining a high grade point average. In 1984, he led in the reorganization of the Paralegal Volunteer Organization. In 1986, he ran and won as President of the Law Student Government with almost a unanimous vote from the student population. In 1987, the Paralegal Volunteer Organization of the College of Law was nominated as one of the best student organizations in the University of the Philippines System.
As a lawyer for the public interest
Prof. Leonen received invitations to join established law firms right after he graduated. However, believing that there was a need to set up more public interest groups that provided competent professional legal services to rural poor and indigenous peoples communities. In December of 1987, he co-founded a legal and policy research and advocacy institution now known as the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center Inc-Kasama sa Kalikasan (LRCKSK/ Friends of the Earth Philippines).
Through this organization, Prof. Leonen was able to develop expertise in the fields of applied constitutional law, natural resources law, Philippine indigenous law, remedial law and many others. Prof. Leonen continues to learn from the various communities he works with. He has traveled extensively to different ecosystems in the Philippines working with various farmers and indigenous peoples groups. He has also visited agrarian communities in other Asian countries.
Within the fifteen (15) years that Prof. Leonen acted as the LRCKSK’s executive director, he nurtured a small organization of four individuals and one office to a nationally and internationally known public interest group affiliated with the biggest environmental network (Friends of the Earth) with four offices and thirty six (36) committed, inspired and dedicated staff. Institutional development included setting up the organization, alignment of its staff, articulating and evaluating human resource policies, conflict resolution, establishing training and mentoring modules, recruitment, fundraising and many others. By the time he left the organization as its Executive Director, it already had a substantial endowment fund to continue its operations and a lot of goodwill based on its track record of assisting indigenous communities.
Prof. Leonen was also instrumental in the establishment of other public interest law groups in the Philippines. He helped found the Sentro para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo sa Pilipinas He participated in the evolution of the network of public/ alternative law groups called the Alternative Law Group Network and at one time acted as its convenor. Among others he sat in the board of the Womens’ Legal Bureau and the WomenLEAD.
Prof. Leonen also joined the Free Legal Assistance Group in 1987. There he gained his experience in civil and political rights litigation as well as paralegal training. He worked with political detainees, the families of the disappeared, victims of domestic violence and the urban poor sector.
Prof. Leonen practiced law by setting up these institutions, clarifying their terms of engagement with various communities, understanding the elements of empowering practice and evolving competence to appear and win in all levels of the judiciary as well as the quasi judicial agencies which include the Departments of Agrarian Reform, Environment and Natural Resources, the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) as well as SEC and the BIR.
As mentor
The achievements of Professor Leonen as a practicing lawyer, academic and administrator did not come with a price for others. He has helped nurture the careers of a number of individuals. For instance, most of the staff that have worked with Prof. Leonen have either taken enrichment staff development courses or proceeded to finish either their college or post graduate degrees. Some of the lawyers went on to take graduate courses. Others built on their experiences and set up or lead organizations and the government’s bureaucracy. Key staff now leading various units of Greenpeace Asia, Friends of the Earth International in Amsterdam and Geneva, WomenLead (public interest institution with feminst lawyers), Womens Legal Bureau, World Resources Institute in Washington, Samhadna Institute in Bogor, Indonesia have worked with Prof. Leonen.
The conjuncture of Prof. Marvic M.V.F. Leonen’s experiences shows not only in the problem sets he uses in the classroom, in the pleadings and oral argumentations he presents in court (including the Supreme Court), in the opinions that he writes as University General Counsel but also in the manner he manages projects and creates—in a collaborative manner—new programs.
Prof. Leonen’s career wades through the dynamic tension between the competence required by the law-as-given and the creativity demanded by the law-as-it-should.
Personal
Although Prof. Marvic M.V.F. Leonen is divorced (having earlier been married to an Australian national), he is nevertheless an active father making certain, in spite of the constraints, that he is present in the life of his four year old daughter.
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