From left to right.

In a democratic society, man’s prized possession rests on his firm belief in the rights granted to him by the fundamental law of the land. Through the Bill of Rights, an individual’s civil liberties are enshrined. Without these rights, freedom is nothing but a silent whisper in a dying night.

The theory is, a civilized and democratic society ensures that every citizen is accorded with what is due to him. Daily activities bombard us with terms such as due process, innocent until proven guilty, freedom of speech among other things. But what if such rights are nothing but written products of intelligent minds? What if these rights are only limited in the scrolls of legal documents and Supreme Court decisions?

www.wearyworker.com/labor-laws-2/what-do-the-4-new-california-labor-laws-say/

Theoretically speaking, the existence of basic human rights provides a peaceful co-existence between parties concerned (i.e., between the government and its citizens or the employers and the employees). For instance, the presence of Collective Bargaining Agreement in labor organizations ensures that both the employer and the rank-and-file employees come to a common agreement with regard to the terms and conditions of employment, particularly the more basic ones.

This, of course, harbors on an ideal situation. How can it happen, however, if ninety percent (90%) of the labor force has not even touched the Labor Code (“LC”), and eighty five percent (85%) of managers have not even read its provisions? Considering that the LC governs the working relations between the employer and the employee, the statistics seems pretty awful.

People rely on their supposed laws to safeguard their interests. But, how can people understand majority of the laws, when they are steeped in careless legal gobbledygooks that could only be understood and at times exploited by lawyers. The majority of the populace have been left into a wide-eye stance every time they are slapped with the notion ‘Ignorantia legis neminem excusat’(ignorance of the law excuses no one from compliance therewith).

I think it’s necessary to translate these laws, particularly those crucial and important to common broken vernaculars. There must be one in Filipino (or Tagalog), Cebuano, and Chavacano. I don’t think it would hurt our Representatives (both from the lower and upper house) to dip a portion of their pork barrel for purposes of translating the laws for the benefit of the people they ought to serve.

At the end of the day, one’s society is not gauged by the thousands of laws that it enacts, but how the laws trickle down to the people, especially to the last strata.