A rising luminary in the field of crime law

No positive law has a more restraining influence on human behaviour than our penal statutes. From the protection of properties, securing of liberties, preservation of life, vindication of one’s honor, up to the defense of the state, our Criminal Law is the embodiment of the peoples’ will on how society should behave. To deter crime has indeed been ascertained as a necessity for the survival of mankind. These are the very reasons why our criminal laws have been vast, dynamic, ever changing and naturally complex. Thus, quite a few individuals dared to unravel its elaborate, intertwined, almost inextricable mass of rules and regulations distributed across a wide repository of general and special laws and, decisions of the Highest Tribunal. Only a few chose to take the road less travelled and those who did, faltered and failed to reach the end. Until now.Judge Marlo B. Campanilla came from a family of lawyers. Except for his sister who is a medical doctor, his father is also a lawyer as well as his two other siblings.

As an initial distinction, he has an eidetic memory and can recall with high precision articles of law, titles of Supreme Court cases with their case numbers and ponentes without using a mnemonic device. He conducts his hearings without a notebook or a laptop to guide him, verbalizing cases and laws by memory, supplying names, places, dates from thin air, eloquently discussing the issues at hand in a scholarly, astute and erudite fashion.

Yet unlike, some of our able magistrates, Judge Marlo carries himself not in a flamboyant and pompous way which caused him to be endeared by his court staff, by the lawyers appearing before him and even the party litigants. His low-profile image betrays his character as an academic scholar and a legal expert.

Judge Marlo started his career as a practicing lawyer in 1995. He reached his crossroad when he was appointed as one of the youngest City Prosecutors of the City of Manila. Owing to his stellar performance, he was designated not only as a regular prosecutor but as a trouble shooter who pitched in for absentee fiscals so as not to defer hearings. This certainly is not a meager task for the lack of sufficient time to prepare has bearing on ones’ performance in court.

He begun his book writings and in due time became author of twelve books primarily dealing on criminal laws, procedures and even the constitution. His books are composite of a rigorous and assiduous research on latest amendments on penal law coupled by the newest Supreme Court decision surgically dissected and analyzed to make a quintessential presentation of the subject. His sharp commentary on past and current legal norms, sometimes even dented with mild censure of Supreme Court decisions, proves to be thought provoking and agitates further discussions on the issue. The fluency of prose, semantic, morphology, the style and the format he used, all make his work a “magnum opus”, helpful to those students of law. Yet it can also be indispensably useful to practicing attorneys in the handling of their cases or to trial judges in the penning of their decisions.

For raising the bar of knowledge in criminal law, Judge Marlo was invited to became an august member of bar reviewers to prepare the herds of law students reviewing for the bar examination. While most law professors shy away from bar review lectures for not only is it mentally demanding and physically tiring, Judge Marlo became the staple bar reviewers of major review centers and premiere law schools all through out the country. His bar lectures are revered and cherished by those who took the bar regardless of whether they have hurdled it or not. As evidence, he has a tapestry of brass plaques and glass certificates adorning his ego wall from floor to ceiling.

Judge Marlo is unquestionably a rising luminary in the field of Criminal Law. He is married to a civil engineer, Sarah, and gifted with two handsome sons, Tristan Mhar and Sean Marco.

Written by Atty. Pearlito B. Campanilla - 2nd Flr. Overland Bldg. 245 Banawe, QC Tel. 4159492. Marlo Campanilla (July 02, 2020). “About the Author” by Atty. Pearlito Campanilla. www.facebook.com/notes/marlo-campanilla/about-the-author-by-atty-pearlito-campanilla/3525847697434775.