September 24, 2024 • 40 mins
Mateo Escueta, an international law attorney in the Philippines, who shares a unique background as a former musician. Our guest shares insightful views on international law, drawing comparisons between the legal landscape and the fantastical realities of Disney movies. We also explore the intriguing politics of the Star Wars universe and how these stories reflect real-world legal and political issues. Tune in for a blend of legal expertise, pop culture analysis, and captivating stories.
Guest Info:
Mateo Escueta, international law attorney at Olivas Law Office (Manila, The Philippines)
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mateoescueta-4b829895/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
We really love our intro.
(00:29):
I know.
I'm just waiting for Carlos Santana to come in and play some of the car lines.
That would be so nice.
So we're back on the show.
I am Cabo y Ballena and I am here with my co-host Margarita Rosa Arango Restrepo.
With the R row is so much nicer than mine.
(00:50):
I don't know if you get this a lot.
Mateo Esqueta.
Yeah, it's perfect.
And you were just saying like how the name has sort of changed the Femi lineage.
But one of the things I noticed, especially with a lot of families in the Philippines,
the names have a very Spanish either history or tone.
So when people meet you for the first time, do they assume you know Spanish?
(01:14):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Does that bother you or is that like you have to correct them every single time?
Not at all.
It's just, that's just how it is.
I should see how that situation morphs into many similar situations because Philippines,
we have a very diverse people.
(01:34):
My dad looks more Chinese, Japanese than he does Filipino.
And whenever he goes around Southeast Asia, Chinese locals or Japanese nationals approach
him speaking their language.
And my dad says, I'm sorry, I can't speak Chinese or Japanese.
And I can't believe you're not Japanese.
I can't believe you're not Chinese.
That's just the joke is that the Filipinos are the Asians who don't look Asian.
(01:59):
And that happens a lot in Peru as well.
And my family, we all look like we're between Peruvian, Japanese.
There's a lot of Japanese influence, but I've done a DNA test and apparently I'm like 96%
Incan.
So I think that's where that comes from.
But I get that question a lot.
So the first time I had met you, I thought, oh, I thought maybe you spoke Spanish and
(02:23):
maybe you just didn't want to speak Spanish or something like that.
But you speak English and Filipino.
Yes.
In fact, I wish that they still taught Spanish at school.
Oh, they don't do that anymore.
They used to, but I think I can't remember exactly when they stopped doing that.
But when my dad and his siblings born in the fifties and the forties, they grew up and
(02:45):
they were taught Spanish in school and their teachers were Spanish friars or priests from
Spain.
But you do know some Spanish.
Okay.
And this is where it gets fun because we really have adopted a lot of Spanish words over the
years.
And one of the games I love playing with my Spanish speaking friends is, Hey, do you know
(03:05):
what I'm saying?
And I'll blurt out a word that we use in the Philippines that obviously has Spanish roots.
And they're like, I think that's this, but oh, it's actually that.
No way.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
So you grew up in the Philippines.
So introducing you, you are a Filipino lawyer.
Yes, sir.
And you've come here to get some more education, get some more information and you hope to
(03:30):
go back.
Yes.
So this summer is a sort of a deep dive for me into the world of international arbitration,
which is a field of international law that I would like to hopefully study and specialize
in in the future.
I will go home.
Yeah, that's part of the plan.
But right now I'm working towards doing what I can to pursue an LLM in the near future.
(03:54):
And I'll take it one step at a time.
So what is, because there's a lot of people probably listening in and have no idea what
an LLM is or why an attorney would come here from another country to study because the
law is different.
So what does an LLM actually do for you?
(04:16):
OK, so the LLM is a Latin abbreviation for Masters in Law.
So in other words, it's sort of like the quote unquote NBA for the law, for lawyers.
Correct.
Is your hopes then to build your practice in the Philippines?
Yes, but that's quite a ways away from now.
The short answer to that question is I need to study the field first because we don't
(04:42):
have courses like this back home in the Philippines because arbitration is strictly speaking,
just domestic.
There are a few international investment arbitration cases that involve the Philippines, but very
few international commercial arbitration matters that do come around for corporations and the
(05:03):
like.
It's not so it's not so broad as rich, I suppose, as other jurisdictions.
Actually, early on in my career, I did this case representing the Philippines with a claimant
called Frappleport.
Oh, my goodness.
OK.
It was a big airport deal and probably heard about in the news back in the day, but it
(05:26):
seemed to be a big issue at the time.
Oh, my gosh.
It's incredible that you were part of that piece of our history.
And I let you know that around that time, the whole controversy was all over the news.
What we were only hearing was how Terminal 3 for the airport, oh, that should have opened,
but they're not opening because there is issues about the concession.
(05:48):
And next thing you know, it's all over the news that our president will not honor the
concession and they're going to seize the concessions are going to use expropriation
and all of that jazz and to the 10 year old me that was like, what does that even mean?
Does that mean I can't fly to visit my family in the States anymore?
But right.
And I worked on it.
I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but working on it, it seemed like it was a big deal for the World
(06:10):
Bank exit.
And when I started early in my career, I was like, what is all this international arbitration?
What is how do we resolve this?
How do we enforce it?
But it became this big, big political thing at the time in the Philippines.
And I just remember doing a lot of late nights, long hours, killing myself on all of this
(06:32):
paperwork, and it was like maps and maps of the terminal and all of this stuff that I'm
sure experts and highly trained attorneys could speak on.
The Philippines has this very long history of being conquered here and there, back and
forth.
Part of it being Spain and then the United States.
So the other thing that was fascinating to me is you are very knowledgeable, not only
(06:56):
with the microphones in the mixer, but you seem to be knowledgeable about music in general.
And it makes me wonder if you had like a band or if you were a singer.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, yeah.
Or if you still are.
The joke back home is I am I am semi retired only because I was in the college music scene.
(07:18):
I grew up in a household where music was just filling all the rooms.
My dad was a hotshot jimmer back in the 60s, the 70s.
So you didn't growing up a family of lawyers you grew up with?
No, I am the first lawyer in our family.
And in fact, we really are a family of artists and not by profession, but we're very passionate
(07:39):
about the arts.
My folks made it a point to get us to do cultural, academic, intellectual and spiritual things
every summer.
We all had an instrument, except for my other sister, whose first name is also Margarita.
She did the piano as well, but she actually became a professional ballerina before she
got into the world of banking, where she's also pretty good.
(08:00):
My dad played the drums.
My mom can play the piano as well.
Dad used to play all of these late night shows back in the 60s and the 70s.
They used to appear on TV.
My brother, he was a professional musician.
He was assigned by MCA Music, which is sort of like the Philippine subsidiary, I guess,
(08:21):
of Universal Records.
So he did that professionally.
At the time he was doing that, I was 14 years old, already playing the guitar, and he starts
to get me to check guitar parts for him.
And next thing you know, I start playing with him in his shows.
And I'm a 16, 15 year old kid playing in front of thousands of people.
(08:43):
And I'm just living in the moment, and I just totally fell in love with it.
That's pretty much what got me into music through high school and college.
I started writing my own things, my own songs.
But on holidays, you don't have the whole family still jamming away or something?
So the funny, the cool thing here is my dad was born on the 1st of January.
(09:05):
And every New Year's Day, both sides of the family come over for his birthday and to celebrate
New Year's.
And I kid you not, pretty much every year there would be performances.
So yeah, so imagine like what little boy, me, you know, playing the guitar or singing
or whatever with my sister on the piano, my brother playing the other guitar, and another
(09:28):
cousin on the bass and the drums.
That was what it was like.
Wow.
Do you miss it, Matt?
Do you miss that emotion?
Do you miss playing in front of thousands of people?
I do miss the thrill of being in a room and just bringing music to life.
That part where you're writing something and you can hear it in your head and you're driving
(09:50):
yourself crazy to achieve the sound in your head and capturing it in the way you play
the guitar or in the way maybe the arrangement sounds on the board.
That's the part I love the most.
I'll tell you, one of my secrets for me for teaching is music.
And usually when I want to teach something, I try to visualize exactly how it's going
(10:13):
to sound to people.
What do I want them to understand from this lesson?
So then I'll go from there and then work backwards and try to figure out, okay, well, what are
the notes?
What are the slides, the color, the presentation?
And I attribute a lot to music, trying to build that orchestra or build that sound means
(10:36):
dividing it up in different pieces.
But that was, at least for me, I hope that music has helped you in your area, your practice.
Oh boy, it's a big part of who I am.
It started with memorizing Disney songs and moving on to the stuff I started listening
to in grade school, high school, and so on.
My friends know that I'm the kind of person who thinks of life in terms of music and lyrics.
(11:01):
There's always a quote from some movie or your favorite song, a Disney song, or in my
case, there's a John Mayer line for everything in life.
Really?
Yeah.
And life according to John Mayer.
Yeah.
Through his biggest fanboy.
Life according to pink.
Pink, right?
Yeah.
And your microphone is pink.
Oh yeah, just for everyone to know, I just got a new pink microphone.
(11:23):
I have upgraded.
Wonderful.
Thank you, Kelby.
Which I feel like there should be more rosa in your life.
Now we can add some roses and some stickers and the like.
That would be a great idea.
Yeah, what you just said really resonated with me because music speaks for you when
you can't speak for yourself.
That's great.
That's a great word.
(11:44):
One of the best feelings you could ever experience when you're discovering music for the first
time or as a teenager is, oh my gosh, this song speaks to me.
These are the words I could never think of, but the song is speaking for me.
And that is just magnified by how well the guitar player is just building up to that
(12:05):
solo or the way the beat sounds in the background or how the bridge just builds up towards a
great ending.
And it's just like, it's three, four minutes of beautiful music.
Yeah.
And you can learn a lot from that.
And that's what moved me to write my own because I noticed that the songwriters or the artists
I love really had songs that spoke to me and people loved them because they really left
(12:30):
an impression.
It's like my brother used to say, you know, when you write a song, you write a piece of
yourself on the lyrics, the arrangement.
That's a part of you that's always going to be there.
David Ryan Harris, he's such a talented artist, taught from Atlanta, and he played guitar.
He still plays guitar for John Mayer.
If you've seen the Where the Light is DVD, David Ryan Harris, that's one of the guitar
(12:50):
players out in the back.
He recently told John Mayer that one of the things that I love about you and the whole
world loves about you is that your music is empathetic.
Your music is empathy.
And that sort of has been what music is for me.
And the songs that I write are the ones that I wrote back when I was in college.
I found that it spoke to some people as well.
(13:14):
You could touch their heart.
Yeah.
If you wrote one song, we would always play in every venue.
There would always be like one, two, three people crying out in the corner.
And that's just.
That's amazing that you can touch people that way.
I find it very difficult to do that via law.
Oh my gosh.
Are we going to go there?
We can't go there.
But yes, I do agree.
It was actually like what, like maybe 10 years ago or maybe more that there was a very famous
(13:40):
Filipino singer that decided to cover some Journey songs.
Okay.
And he got very popular on YouTube to the point where Journey contacted him and made
him the new lead singer.
And then Journey became a thing again.
It's great to hear that you have this passion for music, especially if you're networking
(14:01):
at a legal event.
And then they ask to carry a yoke on it or something.
You're out there being a good musician.
I think that art really embodies life, whether you're into visual arts, performance arts,
it's supposed to move you and it's supposed to change the way you see life, right?
(14:22):
And the way you express yourself.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was you don't separate who you are, what
you love, what you do from that part of you that is a lawyer who advocates that it's
not something you should compartmentalize.
In fact, it's something that you should nurture if not safeguard, especially when you consider
(14:43):
how exhausting the profession is.
That's true.
That's true.
And I think that is actually one of the missions of this podcast.
Oh, wonderful.
To find that heart behind the person because we're not all just what we appear to be on
LinkedIn.
We're just beyond more than that.
So jumping to the next step, was there a pivotal moment or maybe something you were pursuing
(15:08):
when you said, okay, I'm going to put this down and pursue a law.
What really inspired you to take that next step?
I was nine years old.
I just decided I think I want to be a lawyer.
My dad, since you were nine.
Yeah.
I can't remember anymore who told me that lawyers help people, but I just had this notion
(15:28):
that lawyers help people and how do they do that?
Like a doctor does?
No, not exactly.
Well, the phrase that came to me as a nine year old was lawyers stand up for others who
can't stand up for themselves.
They fight for people who have been wronged.
They help resolve conflict.
They understand and they help people because they're good at relating with other people,
(15:55):
defending other people, going back to nine year old me.
I'm very squeamish.
So I knew pretty much early on that medicine was not going to be a thing for me.
That was my reason as well.
And not being able to pass high school biology.
But you know, the funny thing is I loved all of the war films, saving private Ryan, Mel
Gibson.
(16:16):
Oh yeah.
I love to see a good blown off.
And then my uncle just tells me, you know, back in the day, they used to do that with
Hershey's and a lot of ketchup and spaghetti.
Really?
So whenever you see all that, just tell yourself that's extra spaghetti, Hershey's and ketchup.
I'm not going to eat a spaghetti tonight.
But yeah, no one in my immediate family is into law.
(16:41):
Nobody told me go to law school.
My parents, I'm very blessed to have my folks.
They made their kids dreams their dreams too.
Knowing that their youngest son wanted to go to law school.
My folks, in as much as Filipino parents are very traditional, very religious and very
(17:02):
old school.
And when I say that, I mean that in the best way possible, my folks did a great job of
letting us five kids, I'm the youngest of five kids, letting us five kids find out our
calling and giving us the best support to get to where we wanted to get to.
That's amazing.
You don't really find that too much in families.
(17:23):
I always feel bad for any kid that I see that a parent is trying to push a dream that they
couldn't accomplish onto their own kid.
I'm glad you mentioned that because that gives me the opportunity to talk more about
my dad, who is really my hero.
And he wanted to go to the Jesuit University for college, which is like our Georgetown
(17:45):
University in the Philippines.
But being the ninth of 10 kids, my grandmother who taught home economics told my dad, we
can afford to send to that school for college.
Go to the state university like your other siblings did.
We can afford to send you there.
And my dad said that was a defining moment in his life as a senior in high school.
And he told himself, I'm never going to let my kids feel like they miss out on a good
(18:09):
education.
And that's a value that him, my mom shared.
And so now fast forward to 2024, all five of their children, we all have post-grad degrees
in our chosen fields.
Amazing.
They put us through college.
Letting you grow on your own.
In fact, when we think that we're set, mom and dad come in, you should consider taking
(18:33):
further studies on this.
Have you thought about that?
Maybe it'll be good for you because you say you're trying to go this way.
Maybe you should look into studying this or taking that if you want to go that way.
I'm just really blessed to have them as my folks.
And that's part of a big reason why I'm here.
Right.
I met Matt in American University while I was at the center in international arbitration.
(18:59):
While you were doing your LLM as well?
Yeah, I was doing the LLM, but also we were planning the summer program.
We met there.
If I can share, me being the excited kid from the Philippines who wanted to see campus,
wanted to see the dorm, I send an email to the assistant director and I go, I would like
to visit campus.
(19:20):
I would also like to see the law school building and maybe drop by your office and say hello
and introduce myself to you after.
Was it what your impression was?
Like did the school look like how you had envisioned it?
It's beautiful.
Yeah, it is a nice campus.
It is.
It is the best.
(19:41):
And I was just so happy to be there.
My brother-in-law drove me over from Maryland to campus and I just walked around.
It's like I was a kid in an amusement park because deep down I really am just the biggest
nerd and the biggest geek all in the same person.
And I'm sitting outside the assistant director's office and he comes out and we finally have
(20:01):
a great first introduction.
Then he goes, it's perfect that you're here.
I'm actually having a meeting with my fellows.
You should join us.
And I'm like, that's amazing.
Professor, that's a great opportunity.
I do not want to intrude.
I'm so sorry.
No, no, no, it's okay.
We're just trying to catch up with our time with our meeting.
I told you to come at four.
You should join the meeting.
Just sit in and observe.
(20:22):
I'm like, are you sure professor?
I don't want to get in the way.
No, not at all.
It's going to be good for you to come in here and see how things are going.
And he brings me into the room and there were four, he called you his fellows, right?
And the four of you all had taken the LLM and they were helping him organize and run
(20:42):
the summer program.
That's the first day I met you.
And then classes started the week after.
So when you say you were a big geek, I noticed that you add on your LinkedIn that you are
a huge Star Wars fan.
Yes, sir.
Very big.
Was that because of the law or was that because of politics?
No, not at all.
It's because of the lightsabers, man.
(21:03):
Okay.
So you like the action aspect of it because at some point the whole idea of the Federation
stopping trade, starting off with the story of the Naboo going on to, well, now the good
guys technically become the bad guys.
The Galactic Republic becomes the Galactic Empire.
(21:24):
Yeah.
I think George Lucas somehow was trying to teach us a lot about politics.
The first time I see that scroll, I'm like, they're sending two Jedi to push peace.
And already I'm like, wait, that doesn't make sense because they're supposed to be reactive,
(21:44):
not aggressive.
They're sending them.
So I don't know what your take was on that whole aspect.
We can go at this all day and not just with Star Wars, I might add, but we can go to Lord
of the Rings.
We can go to George RR Martin's whole movie buff, all of those things.
Maybe not exactly a film buff, but all these fantasy worlds.
(22:04):
Yes, pretty much so.
And I'm also probably the biggest Calvin and Hobbes geek you'll ever meet.
Okay, you're the first that I've met.
Okay, great.
And Marvel too, you know, depending on my mood, I could be Matt Murdock or I could be
the Punisher, but let's not go there.
But yeah, anyway, going back to the politics.
The most recent Punisher.
Oh, that was great.
That was great.
(22:25):
That was so good.
And few people have seen it, but that one's the best, I think.
I think so too.
And I think he just, that is-
No spoilers, no spoilers.
No, you haven't seen it yet?
I haven't seen it.
I think you should see it because that really is Frank Castle.
That really is him.
I was just like glued to the TV the entire time.
Anyway, the politics of episode one.
You know what's funny about that?
(22:46):
Oh, so you're not a Bridgerton fan?
Like we're in our-
I actually haven't seen it yet.
I know this personality.
I was like, I know most of the ladies have seen Bridgerton and then we're talking here
and talking about Marvel and Star Wars.
You know how when you're in law school and you have backlogs of readings, the joke is
when you become a lawyer, your backlogs, that's your Netflix list of things you've not seen
(23:06):
yet and the list keeps growing.
So Bridgerton just keeps getting pushed further and further down the list because I'd rather
watch my K dramas anyway.
The politics of episode one.
You know what's funny about the opening credits is it talks about the negotiations between
the Trade Federation and Naboo that have totally bogged down.
All of a sudden, the Jedi High Council sends two Jedi keepers of the peace to push the
(23:29):
negotiation.
So when episode one came out, I had already seen four, five and six.
So I know what these guys are about.
You did it in the right order.
Right?
Exactly.
Have you seen these wonderful films yet, Margarita?
Before I-
I have to tell you guys, not all of them.
No?
No.
Wow.
They're way too long.
(23:49):
I know what we gotta do on our spare time.
Okay, we gotta give you homework.
To be honest, I'm more a fan of shows.
They're shorter and we don't have that much time.
I mean, it could be dramatic and stuff.
She loves friends though.
Yeah.
Yeah, true friends.
I love them.
She can quote friends.
It's amazing.
Yeah, that's true.
(24:10):
You know what's funny?
I was going to say that my nephews whom I visited during this trip, we watched episodes
one, two and three together because we watched four or five and six together back in Manila
when they visited.
I'm looking at episode one and two for the first time all over again.
I'm like, wow, this really has the trappings of an international commercial dispute with
(24:34):
political undertones.
Yeah, that was going to be my next question is like your perspective.
You see, what puzzles me the most is now that I look back at it, why was the Trade Federation
so upset at Naboo to begin with?
I don't think that was clear.
So in other words, what was the right of action there?
(24:55):
Yeah.
And I'm saying right of action because cause of action pertains to remedial law, the actual
proceeding or the actual basis upon which you can file a claim.
Just from the perspective of a right of action of the Trade Federation to do what they did,
George Lucas just throws the whole situation at you.
Oh, they're not in good terms.
Trade Federation is trying to do this to Naboo.
(25:17):
But then it really goes all the way back to the chancellor, doesn't it?
Who was orchestrating a lot of these things.
Start mirrors life.
We see a lot of that happen anyway.
And when it comes to geopolitics and the way the world works, which is why we have international
lawyers to think about these things.
I know like Star Wars is a funny example, but it does show some interesting questions.
(25:41):
No, no, I'm going to watch it.
You guys made it sound so interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Aside from the fact that the podcast is worth it now.
You would appreciate that.
In fact, one of the things I love about rereading my favorite books like Harry Potter is that
you will always notice something that never jumped out at you before.
(26:02):
Because you have a different perspective now.
Exactly.
And that's why I love watching these films from my childhood with my nephews and my niece
all over again, whether it be Disney films, historical dramas.
As a parent, watching Harry Potter again gave me a completely different perspective of what
was going on and how these kids are kind of abandoned.
(26:25):
And whatever happens is like, well, why is no one calling the parents?
Why can't they just leave the castle and just go home and be safe?
Because there's a lunatic on the loose.
But when I saw it the first time, I was like, I didn't think about all those things.
And now, as an international attorney, you're seeing like Star Wars differently.
I mean, Disney movies altogether.
(26:46):
Now you can never see the contract that Ursula draws up the same way.
Right, right.
Because she legitimately enters a contract.
Ariel legitimately enters a contract.
You can look at it in a million and one ways.
You ask a hundred lawyers, they get a hundred different opinions.
But from my training, my background, you can look at it from Ariel's point of view where
(27:08):
her consent may have been vitiated.
You can also look at it from an angle where Ursula is maybe liable for tortures and interference.
There's so many ways of looking at it.
Ariel is technically a minor.
Right, exactly.
Depending on this world.
I don't know how long mermaids live.
Oh boy.
I'm glad you mentioned that.
Yes, because oh my gosh, I'm getting war flashbacks about my bar exams, about the age of consent
(27:33):
and all of those things.
Right.
Depending on, yeah.
This is getting interesting.
Depending on.
You guys are so nerdy.
This has been interesting from the beginning.
So yeah, depending on, I guess the culture and every country has their consideration
of what a minor is, whether 21 or 18 or 16 or whatever, that could have been a factor.
(27:54):
So it's like, well, what was the problem with the contract?
She turned her family over, her life over to be able to see this man that she's never
met and completely changed.
And I guess she didn't win.
She didn't get that first kiss.
I think could be like a really cool moot court competition or we can have them both battle
(28:16):
it out.
You know what?
Who was correct?
Who was not?
I mean, if we're talking about Disney inspired disputes, just look at Mulan, for example,
the whole issue about the cartoon or the movie, the film.
Yes.
The whole issue about a woman cannot join the military in 2024.
How is that going to work out?
Let's move to Lilloo and Stitch.
(28:37):
Jamba.
So you made how many experiments?
So Stitch is effectively experiment 6 to 6.
What about the international covenants that treat or govern someone like Stitch who wants
to come to our earth from outer space?
And then you have this whole thing about space arbitration that probably permeates all of
(28:58):
that.
But 6 to 6 is technically property.
So then you have to figure out if this being has rights.
You know, and then we go into that human rights aspect, but it's not a human.
So is it going to be an animal rights thing?
I don't know.
Is it an animal?
Is it an animal?
I don't know.
Because it could speak like what makes someone human, what makes them alien, what makes them
(29:20):
animal.
When you think about it that way, you put together Star Wars, you put together Little
Mermaid, Lilloo and Stitch.
No matter what degree of civilization or technological advancement you see these films set in, we're
still grappling the same kinds of fundamental questions, aren't we?
(29:42):
Yeah, the same stories.
And what does that say?
I don't know, but that's pretty cool.
Yeah.
And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to talk about more than
just the law, what family means to one culture may be different than another.
Somebody might be completely fine with the government being more involved and others
(30:04):
might want the government to be less involved.
But they all come from some kind of background.
I'm sure in the Philippines, many people there have seen what it's like to have the government
involved and then trade governments.
Probably an entire culture that at some point spoke Spanish was completely lost and now
speaking English.
(30:24):
It's great that I'm having this conversation with both of you because we all were former
Spanish colonies.
We were a colony for 333 years from 1521 until we were sold by Spain to the US in 1898 for
$300,000, I believe at the time.
I didn't realize there was a price.
(30:46):
Okay, $300,000.
In 1898, yes.
I want to circle back to one thing you said about what family means, what justice means,
what happiness, what love means.
One thing I've always admired American democracy for is how they really try to teach everyone
to question what liberty means for them, what does equal protection mean for them.
(31:07):
When you think about how the US Constitution and the founding fathers have tried so hard
to write a very broad concept of liberty and civil rights, and they've had a tradition
of challenging the meanings of US civil liberties, I think about how my constitution pretty much
just adopts so much from the US and it makes me wonder, what does liberty mean in the Philippine
(31:31):
context?
We have so many conjugations in Filipino in our language and if you say liberty, do you
mean freedom?
And if you mean freedom, the word for that is calayaan.
But that is freedom, but what about the state of being free?
We have another word for that.
The state of being free is malaya, which means you have the capacity, you have the independence
(31:56):
to be free and you can make your own choices out of your own freedom.
But they're both different terms.
They are.
Calayaan freedom is, I guess, the state of freedom.
But what about malaya, like the capacity to act as a free person?
That's two different things.
One is, when a Filipino thinks about liberty or happiness, what does that mean?
(32:17):
It's an American concept.
That's an excellent point.
But you look at how we're all smiling on TV.
You realize that the Philippines as a third world country is stricken with so much poverty
because of institutional corruption, transitional justice that never happened from dictatorships
of old.
You look at the people who struggle to put food on their table and when you ask them,
(32:41):
what does it mean for you to be happy?
I'm happy as long as I can provide for my family and I can be with my family.
I'm not a social anthropologist, a Filipino historian, neither am I an expert on these
matters.
So they don't have to be on the cover of Forbes.
Yes.
But as a Filipino, I think I can say with some certainty that happiness to the Filipino
(33:02):
family is having a healthy life full of love and health with your loved ones.
That's a beautiful way of describing it, man.
And does that pursuit of happiness then translate towards how Filipinos value family?
Because I look at how every state or culture, the relationship between the people and the
(33:23):
government is very different.
Back home, it's very polarizing.
There are people who don't care because they're comfortable and they have everything they
need.
There are people who don't care because they feel the government is not for them, but only
for people who manipulate it.
And there are many who work in the government and do wonderful things.
(33:43):
They serve the people.
I guess what I'm trying to get at here is in as much as our country has been around
for a long time, we've only really been an independent nation since what, 1946?
1946 is from the United States.
Yes, after we were liberated from the Japanese.
We still have a long way to go.
They're relatively new country under at least constitution wise.
(34:07):
Yeah, so it makes me wonder what's the situation like for you back home, Margarita, with Columbia
and all.
And I understand that you have a background in human rights and you're very passionate
about that.
Right.
So I know that at the end of the day, as lawyers, people working in the legal profession, trying
to find their way, we want to do what little we can for the good of not just the people
(34:30):
around us, but for who we are and where we come from.
Right.
So at the end of the day, we're just trying to find our place while also tending to what
makes us who we are, makes us happy.
Right.
But those fights that maybe we think are just within our countries, which Colombia is a
very interesting country, by the way, beautiful people are amazing.
(34:51):
The food is great.
Of course, it's had been facing a lot of challenges through his history, but just believe that
those challenges are not just within one nation.
We can face those challenges internationally as well.
And for example, what we were talking about Mulán, La Sirenita, a little memory, sorry.
(35:11):
I switched there for a while.
So I do believe that we have a lot of challenges now as international community, which are,
and they have been spoken about as diversity.
How do we include such diverse people into this international community?
(35:31):
I'm really happy that people are open to new ideas, to new voices.
Not all of the people are like that.
So we still have a lot to fight for.
But as long as we do it together and as long as we believe and as long as we are passionate
what we're doing, we're going to make it.
There's a saying, right?
Language is based on experience.
(35:52):
If there's no experience for it, there is no word for it.
And again, as someone who thinks of life in terms of music and lyrics and movies, I think
of Harvey Dent.
And Harvey Dent says, and he says, in Gotham City, you either die the hero or live long
(36:13):
enough to see yourself become the villain, right?
We all have our reasons.
We all have our goals and missions, ideas of justice.
And really, I think you're a huge reason why I do what I do.
Unfortunately, I've been around long enough to see heroes become villains because sometimes
we lose perspective of what we do or why we did it.
(36:36):
And trying to start up this podcast was to remind people why we do what we do.
The person in the suit is more than just their opinion on foreign sovereign immunity, for
example.
They are musicians and people who are passionate about their families, people who love pink,
(36:57):
people who have goals.
And sometimes when we are reminded that we have those goals, I think we can come to a
common interest a lot faster, get through the fluff of it all.
If I may, every freshman in law school in the Philippines is required to read a commencement
(37:18):
speech from one of our former justices.
His name is Pompeo Diaz.
He is a luminary, was a luminary.
And he wrote a commencement speech for one of the law schools back home.
And it turned into this timeless speech that everybody reads.
It's called Passion for Justice.
(37:39):
And let me summarize it for you.
And he says that you do not use the law for your own personal gain.
You are not a huckster of legal tricks.
You are not someone who twists the law for your corrupt intentions.
You have to have a passion for justice.
And that is something that just is so powerful when you think about it.
(38:01):
And again, we're talking about transcendental values.
And isn't that also one of the things that we should all nurture, my passion for justice?
And to this day, I always find myself thinking about Justice Diaz's words and how I could
live them a little more, a little better as I go along.
(38:22):
That's really great.
I'm going to have to look that up and let me send it to you.
Yeah, please, please do.
Because I would love to not only read that entirely, but also pass it on as well.
I think that's really great.
And my apologies if you can hear the police siren in the background as you're talking
about justice.
That was not me.
Because we are in the city of Washington, D.C.
(38:42):
Those were not the special effects.
No, they were not special effects.
That one is.
Wow.
That's, that's awesome.
Yeah.
I love my new soundboard.
We've really had this conversation on Zoom or just on the phone.
It's very different.
So thank you very much, Mateo, for coming in and, you know, speaking from the heart,
(39:02):
but also I've learned a lot.
I think I need to watch The Little Mermaid again.
Yeah.
From that contract.
Star Wars.
I promise I will.
And I look forward to reading more about the commencement speech.
Yes.
I think it's going to be.
I was very surprised to be asked to join me this afternoon, but I was just so grateful.
(39:25):
And I love learning from everyone I cross paths with.
I'm just very, very grateful to be here.
And I just want to say, as we say back home in Manila, Maraming Salamat.
Thank you very much.
And I'm very glad to be here.
It's truly an honor.
It was so nice to have you, Mateo.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Kelsey and Mark.
(39:45):
So I wish you the best back home.
And I appreciate that you came in for this discussion.
Yeah.
Nice to have you.
(40:12):
Got cooking!
We really love our intro.
(00:29):
I know.
I'm just waiting for Carlos Santana to come in and play some of the car lines.
That would be so nice.
So we're back on the show.
I am Cabo y Ballena and I am here with my co-host Margarita Rosa Arango Restrepo.
With the R row is so much nicer than mine.
(00:50):
I don't know if you get this a lot.
Mateo Esqueta.
Yeah, it's perfect.
And you were just saying like how the name has sort of changed the Femi lineage.
But one of the things I noticed, especially with a lot of families in the Philippines,
the names have a very Spanish either history or tone.
So when people meet you for the first time, do they assume you know Spanish?
(01:14):
Oh yeah, definitely.
Does that bother you or is that like you have to correct them every single time?
Not at all.
It's just, that's just how it is.
I should see how that situation morphs into many similar situations because Philippines,
we have a very diverse people.
(01:34):
My dad looks more Chinese, Japanese than he does Filipino.
And whenever he goes around Southeast Asia, Chinese locals or Japanese nationals approach
him speaking their language.
And my dad says, I'm sorry, I can't speak Chinese or Japanese.
And I can't believe you're not Japanese.
I can't believe you're not Chinese.
That's just the joke is that the Filipinos are the Asians who don't look Asian.
(01:59):
And that happens a lot in Peru as well.
And my family, we all look like we're between Peruvian, Japanese.
There's a lot of Japanese influence, but I've done a DNA test and apparently I'm like 96%
Incan.
So I think that's where that comes from.
But I get that question a lot.
So the first time I had met you, I thought, oh, I thought maybe you spoke Spanish and
(02:23):
maybe you just didn't want to speak Spanish or something like that.
But you speak English and Filipino.
Yes.
In fact, I wish that they still taught Spanish at school.
Oh, they don't do that anymore.
They used to, but I think I can't remember exactly when they stopped doing that.
But when my dad and his siblings born in the fifties and the forties, they grew up and
(02:45):
they were taught Spanish in school and their teachers were Spanish friars or priests from
Spain.
But you do know some Spanish.
Okay.
And this is where it gets fun because we really have adopted a lot of Spanish words over the
years.
And one of the games I love playing with my Spanish speaking friends is, Hey, do you know
(03:05):
what I'm saying?
And I'll blurt out a word that we use in the Philippines that obviously has Spanish roots.
And they're like, I think that's this, but oh, it's actually that.
No way.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
So you grew up in the Philippines.
So introducing you, you are a Filipino lawyer.
Yes, sir.
And you've come here to get some more education, get some more information and you hope to
(03:30):
go back.
Yes.
So this summer is a sort of a deep dive for me into the world of international arbitration,
which is a field of international law that I would like to hopefully study and specialize
in in the future.
I will go home.
Yeah, that's part of the plan.
But right now I'm working towards doing what I can to pursue an LLM in the near future.
(03:54):
And I'll take it one step at a time.
So what is, because there's a lot of people probably listening in and have no idea what
an LLM is or why an attorney would come here from another country to study because the
law is different.
So what does an LLM actually do for you?
(04:16):
OK, so the LLM is a Latin abbreviation for Masters in Law.
So in other words, it's sort of like the quote unquote NBA for the law, for lawyers.
Correct.
Is your hopes then to build your practice in the Philippines?
Yes, but that's quite a ways away from now.
The short answer to that question is I need to study the field first because we don't
(04:42):
have courses like this back home in the Philippines because arbitration is strictly speaking,
just domestic.
There are a few international investment arbitration cases that involve the Philippines, but very
few international commercial arbitration matters that do come around for corporations and the
(05:03):
like.
It's not so it's not so broad as rich, I suppose, as other jurisdictions.
Actually, early on in my career, I did this case representing the Philippines with a claimant
called Frappleport.
Oh, my goodness.
OK.
It was a big airport deal and probably heard about in the news back in the day, but it
(05:26):
seemed to be a big issue at the time.
Oh, my gosh.
It's incredible that you were part of that piece of our history.
And I let you know that around that time, the whole controversy was all over the news.
What we were only hearing was how Terminal 3 for the airport, oh, that should have opened,
but they're not opening because there is issues about the concession.
(05:48):
And next thing you know, it's all over the news that our president will not honor the
concession and they're going to seize the concessions are going to use expropriation
and all of that jazz and to the 10 year old me that was like, what does that even mean?
Does that mean I can't fly to visit my family in the States anymore?
But right.
And I worked on it.
I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but working on it, it seemed like it was a big deal for the World
(06:10):
Bank exit.
And when I started early in my career, I was like, what is all this international arbitration?
What is how do we resolve this?
How do we enforce it?
But it became this big, big political thing at the time in the Philippines.
And I just remember doing a lot of late nights, long hours, killing myself on all of this
(06:32):
paperwork, and it was like maps and maps of the terminal and all of this stuff that I'm
sure experts and highly trained attorneys could speak on.
The Philippines has this very long history of being conquered here and there, back and
forth.
Part of it being Spain and then the United States.
So the other thing that was fascinating to me is you are very knowledgeable, not only
(06:56):
with the microphones in the mixer, but you seem to be knowledgeable about music in general.
And it makes me wonder if you had like a band or if you were a singer.
Oh, boy.
Yeah, yeah.
Or if you still are.
The joke back home is I am I am semi retired only because I was in the college music scene.
(07:18):
I grew up in a household where music was just filling all the rooms.
My dad was a hotshot jimmer back in the 60s, the 70s.
So you didn't growing up a family of lawyers you grew up with?
No, I am the first lawyer in our family.
And in fact, we really are a family of artists and not by profession, but we're very passionate
(07:39):
about the arts.
My folks made it a point to get us to do cultural, academic, intellectual and spiritual things
every summer.
We all had an instrument, except for my other sister, whose first name is also Margarita.
She did the piano as well, but she actually became a professional ballerina before she
got into the world of banking, where she's also pretty good.
(08:00):
My dad played the drums.
My mom can play the piano as well.
Dad used to play all of these late night shows back in the 60s and the 70s.
They used to appear on TV.
My brother, he was a professional musician.
He was assigned by MCA Music, which is sort of like the Philippine subsidiary, I guess,
(08:21):
of Universal Records.
So he did that professionally.
At the time he was doing that, I was 14 years old, already playing the guitar, and he starts
to get me to check guitar parts for him.
And next thing you know, I start playing with him in his shows.
And I'm a 16, 15 year old kid playing in front of thousands of people.
(08:43):
And I'm just living in the moment, and I just totally fell in love with it.
That's pretty much what got me into music through high school and college.
I started writing my own things, my own songs.
But on holidays, you don't have the whole family still jamming away or something?
So the funny, the cool thing here is my dad was born on the 1st of January.
(09:05):
And every New Year's Day, both sides of the family come over for his birthday and to celebrate
New Year's.
And I kid you not, pretty much every year there would be performances.
So yeah, so imagine like what little boy, me, you know, playing the guitar or singing
or whatever with my sister on the piano, my brother playing the other guitar, and another
(09:28):
cousin on the bass and the drums.
That was what it was like.
Wow.
Do you miss it, Matt?
Do you miss that emotion?
Do you miss playing in front of thousands of people?
I do miss the thrill of being in a room and just bringing music to life.
That part where you're writing something and you can hear it in your head and you're driving
(09:50):
yourself crazy to achieve the sound in your head and capturing it in the way you play
the guitar or in the way maybe the arrangement sounds on the board.
That's the part I love the most.
I'll tell you, one of my secrets for me for teaching is music.
And usually when I want to teach something, I try to visualize exactly how it's going
(10:13):
to sound to people.
What do I want them to understand from this lesson?
So then I'll go from there and then work backwards and try to figure out, okay, well, what are
the notes?
What are the slides, the color, the presentation?
And I attribute a lot to music, trying to build that orchestra or build that sound means
(10:36):
dividing it up in different pieces.
But that was, at least for me, I hope that music has helped you in your area, your practice.
Oh boy, it's a big part of who I am.
It started with memorizing Disney songs and moving on to the stuff I started listening
to in grade school, high school, and so on.
My friends know that I'm the kind of person who thinks of life in terms of music and lyrics.
(11:01):
There's always a quote from some movie or your favorite song, a Disney song, or in my
case, there's a John Mayer line for everything in life.
Really?
Yeah.
And life according to John Mayer.
Yeah.
Through his biggest fanboy.
Life according to pink.
Pink, right?
Yeah.
And your microphone is pink.
Oh yeah, just for everyone to know, I just got a new pink microphone.
(11:23):
I have upgraded.
Wonderful.
Thank you, Kelby.
Which I feel like there should be more rosa in your life.
Now we can add some roses and some stickers and the like.
That would be a great idea.
Yeah, what you just said really resonated with me because music speaks for you when
you can't speak for yourself.
That's great.
That's a great word.
(11:44):
One of the best feelings you could ever experience when you're discovering music for the first
time or as a teenager is, oh my gosh, this song speaks to me.
These are the words I could never think of, but the song is speaking for me.
And that is just magnified by how well the guitar player is just building up to that
(12:05):
solo or the way the beat sounds in the background or how the bridge just builds up towards a
great ending.
And it's just like, it's three, four minutes of beautiful music.
Yeah.
And you can learn a lot from that.
And that's what moved me to write my own because I noticed that the songwriters or the artists
I love really had songs that spoke to me and people loved them because they really left
(12:30):
an impression.
It's like my brother used to say, you know, when you write a song, you write a piece of
yourself on the lyrics, the arrangement.
That's a part of you that's always going to be there.
David Ryan Harris, he's such a talented artist, taught from Atlanta, and he played guitar.
He still plays guitar for John Mayer.
If you've seen the Where the Light is DVD, David Ryan Harris, that's one of the guitar
(12:50):
players out in the back.
He recently told John Mayer that one of the things that I love about you and the whole
world loves about you is that your music is empathetic.
Your music is empathy.
And that sort of has been what music is for me.
And the songs that I write are the ones that I wrote back when I was in college.
I found that it spoke to some people as well.
(13:14):
You could touch their heart.
Yeah.
If you wrote one song, we would always play in every venue.
There would always be like one, two, three people crying out in the corner.
And that's just.
That's amazing that you can touch people that way.
I find it very difficult to do that via law.
Oh my gosh.
Are we going to go there?
We can't go there.
But yes, I do agree.
It was actually like what, like maybe 10 years ago or maybe more that there was a very famous
(13:40):
Filipino singer that decided to cover some Journey songs.
Okay.
And he got very popular on YouTube to the point where Journey contacted him and made
him the new lead singer.
And then Journey became a thing again.
It's great to hear that you have this passion for music, especially if you're networking
(14:01):
at a legal event.
And then they ask to carry a yoke on it or something.
You're out there being a good musician.
I think that art really embodies life, whether you're into visual arts, performance arts,
it's supposed to move you and it's supposed to change the way you see life, right?
(14:22):
And the way you express yourself.
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was you don't separate who you are, what
you love, what you do from that part of you that is a lawyer who advocates that it's
not something you should compartmentalize.
In fact, it's something that you should nurture if not safeguard, especially when you consider
(14:43):
how exhausting the profession is.
That's true.
That's true.
And I think that is actually one of the missions of this podcast.
Oh, wonderful.
To find that heart behind the person because we're not all just what we appear to be on
LinkedIn.
We're just beyond more than that.
So jumping to the next step, was there a pivotal moment or maybe something you were pursuing
(15:08):
when you said, okay, I'm going to put this down and pursue a law.
What really inspired you to take that next step?
I was nine years old.
I just decided I think I want to be a lawyer.
My dad, since you were nine.
Yeah.
I can't remember anymore who told me that lawyers help people, but I just had this notion
(15:28):
that lawyers help people and how do they do that?
Like a doctor does?
No, not exactly.
Well, the phrase that came to me as a nine year old was lawyers stand up for others who
can't stand up for themselves.
They fight for people who have been wronged.
They help resolve conflict.
They understand and they help people because they're good at relating with other people,
(15:55):
defending other people, going back to nine year old me.
I'm very squeamish.
So I knew pretty much early on that medicine was not going to be a thing for me.
That was my reason as well.
And not being able to pass high school biology.
But you know, the funny thing is I loved all of the war films, saving private Ryan, Mel
Gibson.
(16:16):
Oh yeah.
I love to see a good blown off.
And then my uncle just tells me, you know, back in the day, they used to do that with
Hershey's and a lot of ketchup and spaghetti.
Really?
So whenever you see all that, just tell yourself that's extra spaghetti, Hershey's and ketchup.
I'm not going to eat a spaghetti tonight.
But yeah, no one in my immediate family is into law.
(16:41):
Nobody told me go to law school.
My parents, I'm very blessed to have my folks.
They made their kids dreams their dreams too.
Knowing that their youngest son wanted to go to law school.
My folks, in as much as Filipino parents are very traditional, very religious and very
(17:02):
old school.
And when I say that, I mean that in the best way possible, my folks did a great job of
letting us five kids, I'm the youngest of five kids, letting us five kids find out our
calling and giving us the best support to get to where we wanted to get to.
That's amazing.
You don't really find that too much in families.
(17:23):
I always feel bad for any kid that I see that a parent is trying to push a dream that they
couldn't accomplish onto their own kid.
I'm glad you mentioned that because that gives me the opportunity to talk more about
my dad, who is really my hero.
And he wanted to go to the Jesuit University for college, which is like our Georgetown
(17:45):
University in the Philippines.
But being the ninth of 10 kids, my grandmother who taught home economics told my dad, we
can afford to send to that school for college.
Go to the state university like your other siblings did.
We can afford to send you there.
And my dad said that was a defining moment in his life as a senior in high school.
And he told himself, I'm never going to let my kids feel like they miss out on a good
(18:09):
education.
And that's a value that him, my mom shared.
And so now fast forward to 2024, all five of their children, we all have post-grad degrees
in our chosen fields.
Amazing.
They put us through college.
Letting you grow on your own.
In fact, when we think that we're set, mom and dad come in, you should consider taking
(18:33):
further studies on this.
Have you thought about that?
Maybe it'll be good for you because you say you're trying to go this way.
Maybe you should look into studying this or taking that if you want to go that way.
I'm just really blessed to have them as my folks.
And that's part of a big reason why I'm here.
Right.
I met Matt in American University while I was at the center in international arbitration.
(18:59):
While you were doing your LLM as well?
Yeah, I was doing the LLM, but also we were planning the summer program.
We met there.
If I can share, me being the excited kid from the Philippines who wanted to see campus,
wanted to see the dorm, I send an email to the assistant director and I go, I would like
to visit campus.
(19:20):
I would also like to see the law school building and maybe drop by your office and say hello
and introduce myself to you after.
Was it what your impression was?
Like did the school look like how you had envisioned it?
It's beautiful.
Yeah, it is a nice campus.
It is.
It is the best.
(19:41):
And I was just so happy to be there.
My brother-in-law drove me over from Maryland to campus and I just walked around.
It's like I was a kid in an amusement park because deep down I really am just the biggest
nerd and the biggest geek all in the same person.
And I'm sitting outside the assistant director's office and he comes out and we finally have
(20:01):
a great first introduction.
Then he goes, it's perfect that you're here.
I'm actually having a meeting with my fellows.
You should join us.
And I'm like, that's amazing.
Professor, that's a great opportunity.
I do not want to intrude.
I'm so sorry.
No, no, no, it's okay.
We're just trying to catch up with our time with our meeting.
I told you to come at four.
You should join the meeting.
Just sit in and observe.
(20:22):
I'm like, are you sure professor?
I don't want to get in the way.
No, not at all.
It's going to be good for you to come in here and see how things are going.
And he brings me into the room and there were four, he called you his fellows, right?
And the four of you all had taken the LLM and they were helping him organize and run
(20:42):
the summer program.
That's the first day I met you.
And then classes started the week after.
So when you say you were a big geek, I noticed that you add on your LinkedIn that you are
a huge Star Wars fan.
Yes, sir.
Very big.
Was that because of the law or was that because of politics?
No, not at all.
It's because of the lightsabers, man.
(21:03):
Okay.
So you like the action aspect of it because at some point the whole idea of the Federation
stopping trade, starting off with the story of the Naboo going on to, well, now the good
guys technically become the bad guys.
The Galactic Republic becomes the Galactic Empire.
(21:24):
Yeah.
I think George Lucas somehow was trying to teach us a lot about politics.
The first time I see that scroll, I'm like, they're sending two Jedi to push peace.
And already I'm like, wait, that doesn't make sense because they're supposed to be reactive,
(21:44):
not aggressive.
They're sending them.
So I don't know what your take was on that whole aspect.
We can go at this all day and not just with Star Wars, I might add, but we can go to Lord
of the Rings.
We can go to George RR Martin's whole movie buff, all of those things.
Maybe not exactly a film buff, but all these fantasy worlds.
(22:04):
Yes, pretty much so.
And I'm also probably the biggest Calvin and Hobbes geek you'll ever meet.
Okay, you're the first that I've met.
Okay, great.
And Marvel too, you know, depending on my mood, I could be Matt Murdock or I could be
the Punisher, but let's not go there.
But yeah, anyway, going back to the politics.
The most recent Punisher.
Oh, that was great.
That was great.
(22:25):
That was so good.
And few people have seen it, but that one's the best, I think.
I think so too.
And I think he just, that is-
No spoilers, no spoilers.
No, you haven't seen it yet?
I haven't seen it.
I think you should see it because that really is Frank Castle.
That really is him.
I was just like glued to the TV the entire time.
Anyway, the politics of episode one.
You know what's funny about that?
(22:46):
Oh, so you're not a Bridgerton fan?
Like we're in our-
I actually haven't seen it yet.
I know this personality.
I was like, I know most of the ladies have seen Bridgerton and then we're talking here
and talking about Marvel and Star Wars.
You know how when you're in law school and you have backlogs of readings, the joke is
when you become a lawyer, your backlogs, that's your Netflix list of things you've not seen
(23:06):
yet and the list keeps growing.
So Bridgerton just keeps getting pushed further and further down the list because I'd rather
watch my K dramas anyway.
The politics of episode one.
You know what's funny about the opening credits is it talks about the negotiations between
the Trade Federation and Naboo that have totally bogged down.
All of a sudden, the Jedi High Council sends two Jedi keepers of the peace to push the
(23:29):
negotiation.
So when episode one came out, I had already seen four, five and six.
So I know what these guys are about.
You did it in the right order.
Right?
Exactly.
Have you seen these wonderful films yet, Margarita?
Before I-
I have to tell you guys, not all of them.
No?
No.
Wow.
They're way too long.
(23:49):
I know what we gotta do on our spare time.
Okay, we gotta give you homework.
To be honest, I'm more a fan of shows.
They're shorter and we don't have that much time.
I mean, it could be dramatic and stuff.
She loves friends though.
Yeah.
Yeah, true friends.
I love them.
She can quote friends.
It's amazing.
Yeah, that's true.
(24:10):
You know what's funny?
I was going to say that my nephews whom I visited during this trip, we watched episodes
one, two and three together because we watched four or five and six together back in Manila
when they visited.
I'm looking at episode one and two for the first time all over again.
I'm like, wow, this really has the trappings of an international commercial dispute with
(24:34):
political undertones.
Yeah, that was going to be my next question is like your perspective.
You see, what puzzles me the most is now that I look back at it, why was the Trade Federation
so upset at Naboo to begin with?
I don't think that was clear.
So in other words, what was the right of action there?
(24:55):
Yeah.
And I'm saying right of action because cause of action pertains to remedial law, the actual
proceeding or the actual basis upon which you can file a claim.
Just from the perspective of a right of action of the Trade Federation to do what they did,
George Lucas just throws the whole situation at you.
Oh, they're not in good terms.
Trade Federation is trying to do this to Naboo.
(25:17):
But then it really goes all the way back to the chancellor, doesn't it?
Who was orchestrating a lot of these things.
Start mirrors life.
We see a lot of that happen anyway.
And when it comes to geopolitics and the way the world works, which is why we have international
lawyers to think about these things.
I know like Star Wars is a funny example, but it does show some interesting questions.
(25:41):
No, no, I'm going to watch it.
You guys made it sound so interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Aside from the fact that the podcast is worth it now.
You would appreciate that.
In fact, one of the things I love about rereading my favorite books like Harry Potter is that
you will always notice something that never jumped out at you before.
(26:02):
Because you have a different perspective now.
Exactly.
And that's why I love watching these films from my childhood with my nephews and my niece
all over again, whether it be Disney films, historical dramas.
As a parent, watching Harry Potter again gave me a completely different perspective of what
was going on and how these kids are kind of abandoned.
(26:25):
And whatever happens is like, well, why is no one calling the parents?
Why can't they just leave the castle and just go home and be safe?
Because there's a lunatic on the loose.
But when I saw it the first time, I was like, I didn't think about all those things.
And now, as an international attorney, you're seeing like Star Wars differently.
I mean, Disney movies altogether.
(26:46):
Now you can never see the contract that Ursula draws up the same way.
Right, right.
Because she legitimately enters a contract.
Ariel legitimately enters a contract.
You can look at it in a million and one ways.
You ask a hundred lawyers, they get a hundred different opinions.
But from my training, my background, you can look at it from Ariel's point of view where
(27:08):
her consent may have been vitiated.
You can also look at it from an angle where Ursula is maybe liable for tortures and interference.
There's so many ways of looking at it.
Ariel is technically a minor.
Right, exactly.
Depending on this world.
I don't know how long mermaids live.
Oh boy.
I'm glad you mentioned that.
Yes, because oh my gosh, I'm getting war flashbacks about my bar exams, about the age of consent
(27:33):
and all of those things.
Right.
Depending on, yeah.
This is getting interesting.
Depending on.
You guys are so nerdy.
This has been interesting from the beginning.
So yeah, depending on, I guess the culture and every country has their consideration
of what a minor is, whether 21 or 18 or 16 or whatever, that could have been a factor.
(27:54):
So it's like, well, what was the problem with the contract?
She turned her family over, her life over to be able to see this man that she's never
met and completely changed.
And I guess she didn't win.
She didn't get that first kiss.
I think could be like a really cool moot court competition or we can have them both battle
(28:16):
it out.
You know what?
Who was correct?
Who was not?
I mean, if we're talking about Disney inspired disputes, just look at Mulan, for example,
the whole issue about the cartoon or the movie, the film.
Yes.
The whole issue about a woman cannot join the military in 2024.
How is that going to work out?
Let's move to Lilloo and Stitch.
(28:37):
Jamba.
So you made how many experiments?
So Stitch is effectively experiment 6 to 6.
What about the international covenants that treat or govern someone like Stitch who wants
to come to our earth from outer space?
And then you have this whole thing about space arbitration that probably permeates all of
(28:58):
that.
But 6 to 6 is technically property.
So then you have to figure out if this being has rights.
You know, and then we go into that human rights aspect, but it's not a human.
So is it going to be an animal rights thing?
I don't know.
Is it an animal?
Is it an animal?
I don't know.
Because it could speak like what makes someone human, what makes them alien, what makes them
(29:20):
animal.
When you think about it that way, you put together Star Wars, you put together Little
Mermaid, Lilloo and Stitch.
No matter what degree of civilization or technological advancement you see these films set in, we're
still grappling the same kinds of fundamental questions, aren't we?
(29:42):
Yeah, the same stories.
And what does that say?
I don't know, but that's pretty cool.
Yeah.
And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to talk about more than
just the law, what family means to one culture may be different than another.
Somebody might be completely fine with the government being more involved and others
(30:04):
might want the government to be less involved.
But they all come from some kind of background.
I'm sure in the Philippines, many people there have seen what it's like to have the government
involved and then trade governments.
Probably an entire culture that at some point spoke Spanish was completely lost and now
speaking English.
(30:24):
It's great that I'm having this conversation with both of you because we all were former
Spanish colonies.
We were a colony for 333 years from 1521 until we were sold by Spain to the US in 1898 for
$300,000, I believe at the time.
I didn't realize there was a price.
(30:46):
Okay, $300,000.
In 1898, yes.
I want to circle back to one thing you said about what family means, what justice means,
what happiness, what love means.
One thing I've always admired American democracy for is how they really try to teach everyone
to question what liberty means for them, what does equal protection mean for them.
(31:07):
When you think about how the US Constitution and the founding fathers have tried so hard
to write a very broad concept of liberty and civil rights, and they've had a tradition
of challenging the meanings of US civil liberties, I think about how my constitution pretty much
just adopts so much from the US and it makes me wonder, what does liberty mean in the Philippine
(31:31):
context?
We have so many conjugations in Filipino in our language and if you say liberty, do you
mean freedom?
And if you mean freedom, the word for that is calayaan.
But that is freedom, but what about the state of being free?
We have another word for that.
The state of being free is malaya, which means you have the capacity, you have the independence
(31:56):
to be free and you can make your own choices out of your own freedom.
But they're both different terms.
They are.
Calayaan freedom is, I guess, the state of freedom.
But what about malaya, like the capacity to act as a free person?
That's two different things.
One is, when a Filipino thinks about liberty or happiness, what does that mean?
(32:17):
It's an American concept.
That's an excellent point.
But you look at how we're all smiling on TV.
You realize that the Philippines as a third world country is stricken with so much poverty
because of institutional corruption, transitional justice that never happened from dictatorships
of old.
You look at the people who struggle to put food on their table and when you ask them,
(32:41):
what does it mean for you to be happy?
I'm happy as long as I can provide for my family and I can be with my family.
I'm not a social anthropologist, a Filipino historian, neither am I an expert on these
matters.
So they don't have to be on the cover of Forbes.
Yes.
But as a Filipino, I think I can say with some certainty that happiness to the Filipino
(33:02):
family is having a healthy life full of love and health with your loved ones.
That's a beautiful way of describing it, man.
And does that pursuit of happiness then translate towards how Filipinos value family?
Because I look at how every state or culture, the relationship between the people and the
(33:23):
government is very different.
Back home, it's very polarizing.
There are people who don't care because they're comfortable and they have everything they
need.
There are people who don't care because they feel the government is not for them, but only
for people who manipulate it.
And there are many who work in the government and do wonderful things.
(33:43):
They serve the people.
I guess what I'm trying to get at here is in as much as our country has been around
for a long time, we've only really been an independent nation since what, 1946?
1946 is from the United States.
Yes, after we were liberated from the Japanese.
We still have a long way to go.
They're relatively new country under at least constitution wise.
(34:07):
Yeah, so it makes me wonder what's the situation like for you back home, Margarita, with Columbia
and all.
And I understand that you have a background in human rights and you're very passionate
about that.
Right.
So I know that at the end of the day, as lawyers, people working in the legal profession, trying
to find their way, we want to do what little we can for the good of not just the people
(34:30):
around us, but for who we are and where we come from.
Right.
So at the end of the day, we're just trying to find our place while also tending to what
makes us who we are, makes us happy.
Right.
But those fights that maybe we think are just within our countries, which Colombia is a
very interesting country, by the way, beautiful people are amazing.
(34:51):
The food is great.
Of course, it's had been facing a lot of challenges through his history, but just believe that
those challenges are not just within one nation.
We can face those challenges internationally as well.
And for example, what we were talking about Mulán, La Sirenita, a little memory, sorry.
(35:11):
I switched there for a while.
So I do believe that we have a lot of challenges now as international community, which are,
and they have been spoken about as diversity.
How do we include such diverse people into this international community?
(35:31):
I'm really happy that people are open to new ideas, to new voices.
Not all of the people are like that.
So we still have a lot to fight for.
But as long as we do it together and as long as we believe and as long as we are passionate
what we're doing, we're going to make it.
There's a saying, right?
Language is based on experience.
(35:52):
If there's no experience for it, there is no word for it.
And again, as someone who thinks of life in terms of music and lyrics and movies, I think
of Harvey Dent.
And Harvey Dent says, and he says, in Gotham City, you either die the hero or live long
(36:13):
enough to see yourself become the villain, right?
We all have our reasons.
We all have our goals and missions, ideas of justice.
And really, I think you're a huge reason why I do what I do.
Unfortunately, I've been around long enough to see heroes become villains because sometimes
we lose perspective of what we do or why we did it.
(36:36):
And trying to start up this podcast was to remind people why we do what we do.
The person in the suit is more than just their opinion on foreign sovereign immunity, for
example.
They are musicians and people who are passionate about their families, people who love pink,
(36:57):
people who have goals.
And sometimes when we are reminded that we have those goals, I think we can come to a
common interest a lot faster, get through the fluff of it all.
If I may, every freshman in law school in the Philippines is required to read a commencement
(37:18):
speech from one of our former justices.
His name is Pompeo Diaz.
He is a luminary, was a luminary.
And he wrote a commencement speech for one of the law schools back home.
And it turned into this timeless speech that everybody reads.
It's called Passion for Justice.
(37:39):
And let me summarize it for you.
And he says that you do not use the law for your own personal gain.
You are not a huckster of legal tricks.
You are not someone who twists the law for your corrupt intentions.
You have to have a passion for justice.
And that is something that just is so powerful when you think about it.
(38:01):
And again, we're talking about transcendental values.
And isn't that also one of the things that we should all nurture, my passion for justice?
And to this day, I always find myself thinking about Justice Diaz's words and how I could
live them a little more, a little better as I go along.
(38:22):
That's really great.
I'm going to have to look that up and let me send it to you.
Yeah, please, please do.
Because I would love to not only read that entirely, but also pass it on as well.
I think that's really great.
And my apologies if you can hear the police siren in the background as you're talking
about justice.
That was not me.
Because we are in the city of Washington, D.C.
(38:42):
Those were not the special effects.
No, they were not special effects.
That one is.
Wow.
That's, that's awesome.
Yeah.
I love my new soundboard.
We've really had this conversation on Zoom or just on the phone.
It's very different.
So thank you very much, Mateo, for coming in and, you know, speaking from the heart,
(39:02):
but also I've learned a lot.
I think I need to watch The Little Mermaid again.
Yeah.
From that contract.
Star Wars.
I promise I will.
And I look forward to reading more about the commencement speech.
Yes.
I think it's going to be.
I was very surprised to be asked to join me this afternoon, but I was just so grateful.
(39:25):
And I love learning from everyone I cross paths with.
I'm just very, very grateful to be here.
And I just want to say, as we say back home in Manila, Maraming Salamat.
Thank you very much.
And I'm very glad to be here.
It's truly an honor.
It was so nice to have you, Mateo.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Kelsey and Mark.
(39:45):
So I wish you the best back home.
And I appreciate that you came in for this discussion.
Yeah.
Nice to have you.
(40:12):
Got cooking!
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