ATTY. KATRINA LEGARDA

Atty. Katrina T. Legarda graduated from the University of Bristol, England in 1975, and obtained her degree in law from the University of the Philippines. She joined the Angara Abello Concepcion Regala and Cruz Law offices (ACCRALAW) in 1981. She was the second female associate in ACCRALAW to specialize in the tough field of litigation. As ACCRALAW grew to become one of the biggest law firms in the country, she rose through the ranks, eventually becoming a Partner before she withdrew in 1992 to concentrate on her advocacies for the woman and the child.

She assisted in the prosecution of a politician for statutory rape and, as de officio counsel of a women on death row for killing her husband, she persuaded the Philippine Supreme Court to recognize the “Battered Woman Syndrome” as a defense in a parricide charge. The law on Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children was passed three (3) months after the Supreme Court decision in People vs. Marivic Genosa was promulgated.

Atty. Legarda is the Director of the National Network of the Child Protection Network Foundation [CPN], a multi-disciplinary network for the treatment of abused children which has grown from one child protection unit at the Philippine General Hospital to currently 106 child protection facilities in hospitals spread across the Philippines. CPN, in partnership with the Philippine Judicial Academy (PHILJA), the Department of Health (DOH), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and the Philippine National Police (PNP) has trained medical health officers, judges, prosecutors, social workers and police in the sensitive and proper handling of abused children.

She teaches at the Colleges of Law of the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University, University of Sto. Tomas, and Lyceum of the Philippines University. She co-authored Family Law, [3 volumes], published by Rex Bookstore.