Victor is a Filipino lawyer who is about to commence his LL.M. (Master of Laws) in Université Paris II – Panthéon Assas in France.
Prior to his LL.M., Victor worked as an attorney in a law firm based in one of Manila’s central business districts. Before that, he was chief of staff for an undersecretary in the government’s communications agency. He also spent some time as an investigator in the Securities and Exchange Commission and was a legislative and political affairs officer for the youth party-list representative in Congress.
As a student, Victor was active in student councils, unions and in people’s movements. He was President of the National Union of Students of the Philippines and of the Law Student Council of the University of Santo Tomas. He was elected councilor-at-large to the University Student Council of the University of the Philippines where he was also an active partisan of the militant student political party. Beyond the halls of the university, Victor was a street parliamentarian and was involved in various causes and campaigns from movements to oust corrupt Presidents, to holding inept politicians accountable for illegal disbursement of public funds.
Whenever there is an opportunity, Victor loves to travel. Aside from overseas trips with his family, he is an avid backpacker and loves embarking on multi-week journeys. He has traveled a month crisscrossing the north of India from the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi to the deserts of Rajasthan. On separate occasions, he has spent weeks backpacking Sri Lanka, Taiwan and most countries of Southeast Asia.
One day he hopes to be able to undertake continental journeys across South America and Africa, ala-Che Guevara.
Before stepping into law school, Victor pursued an arts degree and graduated from film school. Today, he still fancies the dream of just dropping everything about being a lawyer to pursue his passion for travel and go on a voyage around the world to capture photographs, write stories and make compelling documentaries that inspire people to embrace our common humanity and to fight for a more equitable and sustainable future for everyone.
Victor speaks English, Tagalog, and basic French. Most of his writings are in English.