Former UP College of Law (CL) dean and one of the Philippines’ giants in international law, Merlin M. Magallona, passed away on the evening of Jan. 1. He was 87.

According to the report of Celeste Ann Lopez Castillo of the UP Media and Public Relations Office (https://up.edu.ph/former-up-law-dean-and-international-law-luminary-merlin-magallona-passes-on/), Magallona was described by stalwarts of the Philippine judiciary as a “‘Filipino luminary in the field of international law,’ ‘a pillar of the Philippines’ international legal academy,’ and ‘one of the best Supreme Court justices we, unfortunately, did not have,’ not to mention ‘one of the staunchest legal defenders of our country’s territorial sovereignty.’”

Many of Magallona’s colleagues and former students remembered him fondly as they expressed their grief on his passing.

On his Twitter account @TedTe,  presidential spokesperson to former President Benigno S. Aquino III and CL faculty, Theodore Te, tweeted: “The forest is barer because a great tree has fallen. RIP Dean Merlin Magallona, who shaped PIL (Philippine International Law) through the generations of students you taught. I am privileged to have been one of the many but also to have served with you, absorbing your insights and your incomparable wit.”

This incomparable wit was testified to by human rights advocate and founding dean of the De La Salle University College of Law, Chel Diokno, in his Apr. 12, 2019 tweet (@ChelDiokno): “A question by Prof. Merlin Magallona, noong sinagot ko, sinigawan ako. Kasi ang sagot ko, ‘Sir, what I’m trying to say is… ’ Sabi niya ‘Don’t try to say it, just say it!’”

The Asian Society of International Law (AsianSIL/@AsianSil) tweeted its condolences and called Magallona “a committed champion” of international law and “teacher who have inspired thousands of students.” Magallona was one of AsianSIL’s founding members.

Meanwhile, former Philippine Star journalist and UP College of Law and UP Diliman College of Mass Communication alum Romel Bagares, in his tweet (@dooyeweerdian) called the former law dean as “properly the Dean of critical international law in the Philippines” and paid tribute to “his pedagogical legacy.”

In an online article of Abogado (https://abogado.com.ph/former-up-law-dean-magallona-dies-in-his-sleep/) Bagares, himself a professor of international law at the Lyceum University College of Law, credited Magallona for developing a “distinctive dualist approach to the Philippine practice of international law,” and paving the way for the rebirth of the Philippine Society of International Law (PSIL), among others. 

Castillo cited a few of the more than 40 publications on international law that Magallona wrote: “International Law: A Bar Reviewer” (2018), “Globalization and Sovereignty: The Republic in Crisis” (2017), “Legal Education: The Search for its Strategic Center in Filipino Cultural Development (2016), “The Philippines in the International Law of the Sea,” (2015), “Philippine Constitution and International Law” (2013), “Dictionary of Contemporary International Law” (2011), “Supreme Court and International Law: Problems and Approaches in International Law” (2010), “Fundamentals of Public International Law” (2005), “A Primer on the Relation of Philippine Law and International Law” (2000), “International Issues in Philippine Perspective” (1998), “A Primer on the Law of the Sea” (1997), “A Primer on the Law of Treaties” (1997), “Japan in the New State of World Capitalism: Problems in Law and Development in Philippine-Japanese Relations” (1995), and “The Dismantling of the Philippine State” (1994).

On the Feb. 3, 2015 post of the UP College of Law on its Facebook page, the college mentioned that Magallona was a resource speaker at the resumption of the joint hearings of the committees on constitutional amendments, local government and peace. Magallona spoke his views on the constitutionality of the Bangsamoro Basic Law. 

Castillo wrote that Magallona was known for staunchly “upholding the Philippines’ territorial sovereignty against the incursions of foreign powers such as China.”

Born on Aug. 6, 1934, Magallona earned his bachelor of laws from the UP College of Law and served as one of the college’s faculty, teaching international law. He then became its associate dean from 1991 to 1995 and later its dean from 1995 to 1999. He also served as director of the UP Law Center Institute of International Legal Studies from 2000 to 2001.

Magallona was a participant in the Tokyo External Session of The Hague Academy in 1968, a visiting fellow at Oxford University in 1969, and a visiting research fellow at the Graduate School of International Development of Nagoya University in 1994.

In 1999, the Judicial and Bar Council nominated him to the position of associate justice of the Supreme Court. He was chair of the Department of International and Human Rights Law of the Academic Council of the Philippine Judicial Academy of the Supreme Court, and was a member of the Panel of Arbitrators of the Permanent Court of Arbitrators.

He was undersecretary of foreign affairs in 2001 until his resignation in July 2002. He was a member of the Supreme Court Committee on Legal Education from 1999 to 2003.

Magallona was counsel for the Philippines in the oral arguments before the International Court of Justice. He handled the case of “Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons” (Advisory Opinion, 1995), and the case, “Concerning Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia v. Malaysia),” in which the Philippines intervened in 2001.

Magallona was a member of the expert group on the legal aspects of the New International Economic Order established by the UN Institute on Training and Research in 1992, and was listed as an expert in human rights of the UN Human Rights Commission. From 1999 to 2000, he served as a member of the arbitral tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, France.

In 2002, he represented the Philippines in the working group of the UN Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court in Rome in 1998. He headed the Philippine delegation to the meeting of the International Criminal Court Preparatory Committee in 2002. In 2004, the Supreme Court appointed him as amicus curiae (an impartial adviser to a court of law) in the controversial Fernando Poe citizenship case. He was part of the organizing committee and the executive council of the Asian Society of International Law (AsianSIL) in 2004 and was a member of the International Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi and the International Honor Society for the Social Sciences, Pi Gamma Mu.

Magallona’s passing may have been a “sad day for many of us,” as Marvic Leonen, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines put it, but he left behind many prominent legal eagles who Leonen said Magallona had shaped. The university echoes Leonen’s (@marvicleonen) gratitude to the scholar and mentor of many: “Thank you and we carry on with your legacy.”