Oscar Franklin Tan: Proud Pinoy at Harvard

Oscar Franklin Barcelona Tan, 27, a 2005 graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Law, talks about life as a student for a masteral degree at the prestigious Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has been chosen from among 700 graduates to deliver the student address at this year's commencement ceremonies last June 7. Tan was amazed at the vast resources, the values and the work ethic of students and professors at Harvard. He said he enjoyed the challenges of the very different academic environment there. Despite his being a very successful student in one of the best law schools in the world, he declared he is very proud of being a Filipino particularly when he was able to shout “Mabuhay!" to close his June 7 speech. Tan took time to answer a few questions GMANews.TV sent him through e-mail. How is life as a student at Harvard? Is it the same with a student’s life here in the Philippines? Life here at Harvard Law School is very different in that resources for the school are incredible. The Langdell Library, for example, a prominent fixture in the campus, is larger than the entire University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law. The library looks like a palace inside. The first time I took my father (also a UP Law alumnus) inside the main reading room, he walked in stunned silence. During our orientation, a librarian told us to inform the library staff members if we needed any law book not in their collection so that the library could buy a copy. The library personnel were not joking. One time, I reported that a book I wanted to read was missing. Half a week later, they told me to pick up the newly purchased replacement copy. When I got that notice, I remembered my frustration when I was still a law student at UP when a staff could not find copies of law books deemed classics in the United States, even those published in the ‘60s. The rest of the facilities are similarly amazing, from the ice skating rink to the law school gym. Only when I set foot on the Harvard Law campus did I truly appreciate the efforts of my UP Law dean, Raul Pangalangan, who pressed hard to renovate classrooms and, in particular, the bathrooms. Harvard Law Dean Elena Kagan also believes in improving students’ quality of life. The dean even ordered that free coffee to be served outside classrooms each morning. American students love her so much that they even threw a party when she lost in her bid to become the next Harvard University president. That meant she would stay on as law dean. Beyond the physical facilities, there is simply no lack of funding. Professors get allowances to treat groups of students with lunch, snacks or wine during smaller, more intimate classes. Thousands of dollars to support public interest programs are available. Being in Harvard, I could appreciate the UP “motto" of doing more with less. But the incredible resources available to ordinary law students here is empowering. I hope that future law students in the Philippines can have the latest treatises in any specialized branch of law at their fingers tips, or have the opportunity to join a human rights clinic an ocean away. A student’s life in Harvard Law School is also very different in that students generally enter with greater life experience. I took the difficult route of focusing on two fields of study instead of one, and my classmates were nothing short of amazing. I studied Constitutional Law with people who had worked or were set to work with supreme court justices from their countries. I studied corporate subjects with people who had worked for investment banks like Goldman Sachs or consulting firms like McKinsey. On my first day in Capital Markets class, I asked my seatmate what he did before law school and he answered, “My hedge fund tanked." Some students even had advanced degrees, even PhDs in other fields such as economics, philosophy or history. I even have a dear friend who was simultaneously finishing her PhD in Economics, and while I hate to draw attention to this fact, she happens to be blind (and reminds me very much of my Ateneo class valedictorian Roselle Ambubuyog and her great inner strength). However, I was happy to discover that people took each other’s intelligence for granted and instead focused on each other’s uniqueness. I echo my American friend Kevin LoVecchio, who said he entered Harvard Law School wanting to do something different and dispel the myths that arose from movies such as Paper Chase. However, he discovered that most of the myths had long been dispelled. The dean awarded him for organizing so many events that kept the graduating class together. My friend even challenged the class to continue to have enough time for fun while working, as they were able to do so while studying. I made it my resolution to have lunch with at least one new classmate each day, and two to three each from different regions was more the norm. The conversations that arose were nothing short of amazing. Being able to sit in the classes of the “gods" of American law was already a dream come true, but can you imagine being able to sit with your classmate from Afghanistan and listen to him relate how the Taliban tried to kill him because of his human rights work, and describe the different factions within the country? Or, can you listen to a table of judges from four different countries compare notes on common problems, the favorite being low salaries? Some classmates ended up amazing themselves; one of my friends ended one lunch by saying he had never been with a Chinese student until I invited him to have lunch with one. The school environment is completely different in that the values are completely different. Here at Harvard Law School, no one places any value on memorization, and all exams are either open book or take home. Unlike the Philippine practice, no one is graded when asked to speak during class, to encourage genuine debate and self-discovery. Classes focus not on how individual high court decisions ruled, but on underlying principles and policy debates. They were also more interdisciplinary. For example, my Securities class touched on the economic principles that underlie regulation, and we used both a legal and a MBA textbook for Mergers and Acquisitions. Students’ work ethic is similarly at a higher level. I was amazed how well attended invited speakers’ talks had been. Many people made it a point to attend talks by famous visiting lecturers regardless of the field. In fact, Stanford professor Phil Zimbardo filled the largest auditorium in the school when he launched his new book, The Lucifer Effect, even though he is a psychology professor and not a lawyer. Students’ self-imposed discipline in the academic journals was also amazing, and I saw how thoroughly they checked authors’ sources for legal articles after I made friends among the Harvard Law Review editors. In contrast, I was disappointed, for example, when I found a published Philippine article that based some of its points on constitutional provisions not found in Philippine law, something squarely blamed on editors’ sloppy source verification. How did you cope with the challenges of a very different academic environment? I did not try to cope; I reveled in this environment. I found myself extremely bored in many classes in UP Law, and that I learned the most in various corridor conversations with professors or when I hoodwinked them into supporting my independent writing projects. For example, I took the Banking class of Raffy Morales but told him that I actually wanted to write a paper exploring the foundational philosophy of the late Senator Raul Roco’s Securities Code. I was spoiled in that former deans Pacifico Agabin and Raul Pangalangan indulged these independent projects since I was a freshman. One time, I absented myself from one of Dean Agabin’s classes. I waited for him instead outside the classroom to ask him to comment on a draft constitutional law paper attacking drug testing for driver’s license applicants. I was also absent for the next class, so Dean Agabin handed the draft with his extensive comments to one of my classmates, with instructions to give it to me. The secret to coping with such an environment, I suppose, is to find something about law that you are passionate about and then pursue it because you can take your interest as far as it can possibly go. I was very lucky to have been Dean Raul Pangalangan’s student assistant when he was involved in key Supreme Court cases, but that opportunity is not rare in Harvard Law School. For example, Laurence Tribe, the most famous law professor in the United States, once told us to look closely at the first page of a famous article he wrote in the ‘80s. His research assistant was credited in small print at the bottom, and the name read Barack Obama. Was your stay in Harvard sponsored? I am practically a fresh graduate so I was lucky to receive a generous financial aid package from Harvard Law School. It was funded in part by Harvard’s Ayala Scholarship Fund and by a grant from Mrs. Loida Nicolas Lewis. My law firm, Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz (Accra) Law Offices, also provided financial support, although I was not successful in requesting Founding Partner and Harvard Law alumnus Teddy Regala, Sr. for his “Regala Scholarship." The balance was paid for through what my brother calls “COD" (Care of Daddy). How were you selected among, I guess, many Filipino young lawyers who vied for Harvard’s master’s studies in law? Regarding credentials, to give you a sense of the school’s values, the single most important credential in Harvard is to be president of the Harvard Law Review. It was a national event when Barack Obama became the first black student to hold this position, and it was another national event when my classmate Andrew Crespo became the first Latino president this year. The school examines one’s legal writing experience and what articles one has written, what other extracurricular activities one has participated in, what work experience one has, and what one’s future plans are. Simply put, having good grades are just the bare minimum. What is the general attitude of American or European professors toward Asian students? I have not met a professor who treats any student differently because of his ethnicity. At worst, we have Hal Scott who teaches International Finance and takes opportunities to grill students from the European Union, Japan and China whenever the discussion moves to issues specific to those economies. However, he does so in a lighthearted way. Once, we all laughed when he said something like this: “The article theorizes that the Japanese Ministry of Finance’s policies were responsible for the economy’s decline. Mr. Ishitani, you work at the Japanese Ministry of Finance. Do you agree?" On the “flip" side, I have a dear French friend who married a Korean. He asked me about Dean Pangalangan, who was a visiting professor, and I said he had successfully sued the president over Proclamation 1017 before coming to Harvard. My French friend was so impressed that he enrolled in his class, specifically to experience an Asian professor’s perspective on International Law, and gave it rave reviews (and got the highest grade). It is experiences like this that illustrate why, I believe, many American students from minorities lobby for more minority professors, and there is currently only one Asian professor among the permanent law faculty. La Alianza, in particular, pushes to have a full-time Latino professor. Do you feel proud being a Filipino? I am extremely proud of being Filipino here, especially after I had the opportunity to shout “Mabuhay" in the middle of the Harvard Law School graduation ceremony. My “cosmopolitan" cultural background allowed me to interact effectively with various classmates. I believe the Philippine culture gives us a natural empathy and openness that enables us to be very effective communicators in a multicultural environment. In such environments, the path of least resistance is to stay with people from your own region and language group, the main groups being the East Asians, Latinos, Africans and continental Europeans. I made an effort to circulate among these groups, and invited individual classmates or groups from different regions to lunch to take them away from their groups sometimes. I had one classmate who had been a child prodigy and who was clearly one of the most intelligent among all of us, and he always had several dozen books scattered on the room of his floor because he reads articles unrelated to his class work. However, he was also extremely shy, and rarely left his room, to the point that some made nasty jokes about his being a “serial killer." Every time I went out, I made it a point to pass by his room and extend an invitation, which would always be rejected. Eventually, we had dinner at a Japanese noodle house, and I taught him how to use chopsticks as he rarely ate at Asian restaurants. I also taught him how to ask the waiter for a spoon and fork. After my student address at the graduation, I invited my classmates to join me in opening a bottle of champagne and everyone was surprised when he did in fact leave his room to share the bottle. He left Boston the day after our graduation, and the “serial killer" intentionally passed by my room to exchanged graduation gifts. We Filipinos are raised to empathize and ensure everyone’s inclusion in a group, and I believe this is very powerful when we interact with people from more individualistic cultures. Adel Tamano shared the same insight when he gave me his pep talk one night when I rode home with him after a dinner. Conscious he was an Asian who was a native English speaker, he made it a point to give attention to the Asians who were most uncomfortable with English, and he would be repaid in kind. We take it for granted, but the first half of the year for many foreign students is spent just struggling to keep up with the fast-paced, high-level classroom discussion in their second language. Do you have any message to Filipino students in Philippines as well as in the US? Being from UP Law, I would love to tell fellow Filipinos not to let one’s academics get in the way of one’s education. An extreme example was our university commencement speaker, Bill Gates, who received his honorary degree with our class. He made fun of himself as Harvard’s most famous dropout and the valedictorian of those who failed, because he quit school to found Microsoft. It was truly a historic experience to see this extremely wealthy and influential man finally receive a diploma. My frustration is that the Philippine legal education is infatuated with inane memorization, geared towards the inane bar examinations. Again, I emphasize that our professors [at UP Law] are world class, Dean Pangalangan was invited to teach at Harvard and he taught essentially the same class he teaches in UP, but they have to teach under a very restrictive system that emphasizes memory work. I hope students are not deterred from pursuing the deeper and more beautiful unsettled debates in law outside the existing curriculum, where the discipline’s true intellectual beauty shines. Law’s majesty is found at the highest levels where law intertwines with literature and philosophy, because law, in essence, is a discipline that deals with our humanity. If nothing else, these beautiful unsettled debates will be waiting for you when you get accepted into Harvard Law School. - Oscar Franklin B. Tan Getting into Harvard Harvard’s law school has a record of not accepting fresh law graduates for its master’s program. But Tan was immediately admitted after he graduated from the University of the Philippines (UP) Law in 2005. Harvard’s LLM program is a much-coveted prospect among UP law professors. Some sources even said that it is possible that Oscar Tan could have “knocked out" some professors who also vied for this school years’ LLM program. Academic records show that Tan is an uncommon stock. His thirst for knowledge seems unquenchable. His interest in various academic fields is apparently limitless, and his drive for excellence eludes any description. Before taking up law, he had been through various academic disciplines, reaping medals and honors. He excelled in Management Engineering, Economics, the natural sciences such as Botany and Zoology Physics. He had been cited for excellence in mathematics. He had bagged awards in writing contests. He used to be editor-in-chief of various student publications. He had been cited for various social and community involvements. He is founding editor-in-chief of Ateneo Celadon Chinoy (student Chinese culture magazine). He is the first Filipino delegate to the China Synergy Program for Outstanding Youth. In his draft commencement address, Oscar Tan encourages his classmates at Harvard to break the narrow sense of nationalisms of individual nationalities and to affirm that everyone is a citizen of the world. In the concluding lines of the draft speech he says, “My friends – and this includes our American classmates who will soon lead the world’s lone superpower – let us transcend our individual nationalities and affirm that we are citizens of the world." Family background Tan’s family comes from Bacolod City and Escalante City, Negros Occidental. He grew up in Quezon City. The Franklin in his name was taken from outgoing Senator Franklin B. Drilon. Escalante City Mayor Santiago “Maymay" Barcelona, Jr is his uncle. He is an associate at the Angara Abello Concepcion Regala & Cruz (Accra) Law Offices, but he is on study leave. His father, lawyer Edmundo L. Tan of the Tan Acut & Lopez Law firm, had no comment on his son’s selection to give the address, but said, “I will be there in Harvard on June 7 to congratulate my son personally and to share the moment with him." His mother, Dr. Jesusa Barcelona Tan, is a dermatology consultant at the Hospital of the Infant Jesus in Sampaloc, head of the photo-dermatology unit, and former chair of the Department of Dermatology at the Jose T. Reyes Medical Center of the Department of Health. Education highlights Selected to speak at Harvard Law School 2007 commencement ceremonies Accepted by Harvard Law School immediately after UP Law for studies in Constitutional and Securities Law, Set record for legal writing awards in UP Law as Philippine Law Journal Chair and first Drilon legal writing scholar, Assisted Dean Raul C. Pangalangan in landmark Supreme Court appearances as student researcher from 2002-2006, Graduated from Ateneo de Manila’s two most difficult programs, Management Engineering and Economics Honors, Contributed to Chinese-Filipino community as founder of Ateneo Celadon Chinoy and editor of Xavier Alumni Times, and Proposed amendments to Party-List Act formula to fill up party-list seats, awarded UP Law’s Justice Mendoza prize Harvard Law School (International Finance Concentration), Master of Laws (2007) Studied Constitutional Law under prominent scholars Laurence Tribe (Constitutional Law) (most famous professor in Harvard Law School), Frank Michelman (Comparative Constitutional Law) and Justice Richard Goldstone (Comparative Constitutional Law) Studied international finance-related subjects under prominent scholars Hal Scott (International Finance), Lucian Arye Bebchuk (Corporate Governance), Robert Glauber (Capital Markets Regulation), John Coates (Mergers & Acquisitions) and Allen Ferrell (Securities Regulation) Joined Harvard Asia Law Society, Asia-Pacific Law Students’ Association and La Alianza (Latino Ass’n) University of the Philippines, College of Law, Bachelor of Laws (Top Ten of Class) 2005 Set law school record of eight legal writing prizes (other graduating awardees received one) Ateneo de Manila University, cum laude, double-major in Management Engineering / Economics Honors (2001) Ateneo Merit Scholar (1997); exempted from 24 credits of natural sciences and pre-calculus subjects Only student in 1997 to pass Botany and Zoology exemption exams; one of only three to pass Physics exam Received permission to double-major beginning freshman year to avoid graduating early Awards First freshman awardee and first two-time awardee, Justice Irene C. Cortes Prize for Best Paper in Constitutional Law (2002, 2005) First awardee (also Runner-Up), Justice Vicente V. Mendoza Prize for Best Critical Analysis of a Supreme Court Decision (2005) Awardee, Professor Myres S. McDougal Prize for Best Paper in International Law and Jurisprudence (2005) First awardee, Professor Gonzalo T. Santos Prize for Best Paper in Securities Law (2005) Awardee, Professor Esteban B. Bautista Prize for Best Paper in Intellectual Property Law (2005) First awardee, Professor Bienvenido C. Ambion Prize for Best Paper in Private International Law (2004) First sophomore awardee, Professor Araceli T. Baviera Prize for Best Paper in Civil Law (2003) First Violeta Calvo-Drilon-ACCRALAW Scholar for Legal Writing (awarded by Senate President Franklin Drilon) Other academic and leadership citations Chair, Philippine Law Journal (Philippines’ most prestigious academic legal journal); Special citation from Dean Raul C. Pangalangan for record-breaking work; Finished four double-length issues in record time of four months; released first in induction ceremony; Featured authors included Chief Justice Hilario Davide, Senior Associate Justices Reynato Puno and Artemio Panganiban, Senate President Franklin Drilon, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and United Nations Security Council President Lauro Baja; Organized unprecedented week-long symposium reviewing SC decisions, featuring every living UP Law dean; Wrote Journal’s citation manual and various guides for editorial work; Initiated journal digitization in coordination with Justice Antonio T. Carpio and Supreme Court Library; President, Law Electoral and Judicial Tribunal (administered elections for 500 students, penned all tribunal decisions); Administered college elections for 500 law students and penned all tribunal decisions; Presided over only en banc 17-judge hearing in college’s recent history regarding electoral controversy; College of Law nominee for Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines; Ateneo Merit Scholar (1997); exempted from 24 credits of natural sciences and pre-calculus subjects; and Only student in 1997 to pass Botany and Zoology exemption exams; one of only three to pass Physics exam - GMANews.TV