Doctor, doctor …

of epithets, diatribes flying fast and thick between disputants who should not have even been

very Filipino!

The Legal Education Board (LEB), constituted by law to regulate legal education in the Phil causing what it called the “migration” from the LLB (Bachelor of Laws) degree to the Juris Doctor (JD) title. The effect of the regulatory agency’s rule was that all law graduates, whether members of the Bar or not, would henceforth be deemed to have earned the Juris Doctor degree. This was hardly contested, except by a few law deans who believed that the distinction between a degree that requires a thesis (JD) should be distinct from one that had no such requirement. The LEB had a very good reason though. Under the Rules of Court — and therefore by law — no one can be enrolled in the law program without having completed a baccalaureate degree. Effectively, therefore, the law degree was post-baccalaureate. It was therefore “unfair,” LEB believed, for law graduates to be classed as baccalaureate degree holders.

It was a subsequent resolution, however, that stirred what is really uncalled for acrimony. LEB went a step further: It decreed that the JD would be the equivalent of a doctoral degree for purposes of classification, rank and compensation in respect to non-law courses. This would have meant that when a university engages a lawyer to teach Obligations and Contracts to business students, the university would have to classify the lawyer as a doctorate-degree holder and rank and compensate - the “unpleasantries” exchanged by advocates and opponents is worth neither space nor time.

Physicians, optometrists, dentists, veterinarians, even some naturopaths — these have traditionally honorary — a doctorate degree, honoris causa, being quite a different thing) “doctor.” In fact, the degrees conferred bear the title doctor: Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, Doctor of Dental Medicine, Doctor of Optometry, etc. With every good reason is a law graduate entitled to the title of Juris Doctor (in English: Doctor of the Law, once more, as distinguished from Doctor of Laws!). But it has never been customary to address law graduates “doctor” in those jurisdictions that confer the JD. Canada is an interesting case, being a bi-jural jurisdiction: common law (the Anglophone section of the dominion) and civil law (the Francophone part of Canada) — in Canada, the LLB indicates a civil law graduate, the JD, common law. These doctoral titles are “professional”: they lead to and entitle the holder to practice a profession. Under Philippine law, there is a peculiar rule governing MDs. Regardless of the fact that your diploma announces that you have been conferred the degree “MedicinaeDoctor,” you are forbidden from appending MD to your name until you acquire the this incongruous — your diploma announces that you have the degree, but the law requires you to conceal it until you have the license!

By contrast, research degrees, the most familiar of which is the PhD, demand of the candidate

for overseas vaccines after news leaked that defective vaccines made by Chinese drug companies were being given to their children.

But the most noticeable omission in Xi’s narration of major events in 2018 was a small change in the Chinese constitution, which lifted term limits for the president and vice president. That single act, in all likelihood, undid much of China’s not really prolonged classroom residence, as intensive research culminating in the writing of a thesis or a dissertation, its public defense and its subsequent publication. In fact, in many foreign universities, hardly any course work is required for the PhD, but the research that goes into the writing of the dissertation is exacting. In law, the research doctorate would be JSD, Doctor of Juridical Science (or, as in England and in the University of Santo Tomas, Doctor of Civil Law). The point has to doctorate, the distinguishing feature is the intensity of research and the consequent original contribution that the researcher makes to the discipline. This is the reason that I have been, as a rule, averse to assessment and evaluative studies for doctoral dissertations. When all you do is go over checklists or score against given standards, what room is there to introduce novelty into the discipline, or to advance the frontiers of human understanding in any science?

As for government recognition of degrees, it would be rash — degrees conferred without government authority as “spurious” or “counterfeit.” The Catholic Church, through pontifical or ecclesiastical institutions, confers degrees; among these are Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Sacred Theology, Doctor of Canon Law, Doctor of Sacred Scriptures, Doctor of Sacred Liturgy (aside from the licentiate and baccalaureate levels of these degrees). They may not be government-conferred or in the church and in ecclesiastical institutions. It is much the same thing with the Church of England that has its Lambeth degrees. So, it really all depends what the degree is for and the context within which it is used. The “D.D” after bishops’ names is “Doctor Divinitatis,” “divinity” being another term for “theology,” and it is attached to a bishop’s name without either Rome, or a university granting it to him. It is simply a matter of ecclesiastical tradition, and no one protests the fact that many who are granted the “D.D.” would be better off as quack doctors than real ones!

One last point: There are two Latin words associated with the “doctus” — learned. As a research degree, the doctorate degree is the highest academic degree that a university confers, and it should be conferred only on those who exhibit the acuity and perspicacity of thought to advance the frontiers of human knowledge. Given that, it is correct to invite CHEd’s attention to the fact that many graduate schools turn out PhD graduates annually who manage to scribble a sheaf of hardly intelligible papers bundled together and made to pass off by equally incompetent professors and examiners as dissertations. The second Latin word is “docere” — to teach. And in medieval times, the principal distinction of the doctor was that he taught (there were hardly any female doctors; the women “Doctors of the Church” became doctors long after they were dead!). It does not do one much good, Aquinas wrote, to be brilliant, but it is virtuous to enlighten.

rannie_aquino@csu.edu.ph rannie_aquino@sanbeda.edu.ph rannie_aquino@outlook.com

Sisyphean efforts to create trust.

China’s problem of trust is not just with governments, but with people around the world. Even if it has no ambition to replace the US as global leader, China needs to do more to prove that it is not a threat, particularly to its neighbors.