City officials gave due recognition and the highest commendation to a most deserving and gifted Cordilleran, Jozef Maynard Borja Erece from the city who was dubbed as the ‘modern-day renaissance man’ for making history as the youngest law graduate and the youngest practicing lawyer in the world at the age of 18.
Under Resolution No. 015, series of 2023, local legislators stated that although Erece had been awarded House Resolution No. 2072 on May 16, 2014, a congressional commendation and congratulations for graduating law at the age of 18 in Australia by the House of Representatives during the 16th Congress in which by the breadth and scale of his gifts and talent, inspired Congress to cite during its filing that ‘he may arguably be the most prodigious modern-day Filipino child prodigy,’ Baguio City still deserves to know and to recognize through the said resolution, one of the most prodigious citizen, if not in the history, renowned not only in the Philippines but the world over, for giving honor to the city and the whole nation.
Erece, now 26 years old, is a Cordilleran genius from the city, whose proud parents are Dr. Maynard Victor ‘Thoots’ Erece, an educator, late prosecutor and criminal lawyer who went to Magsaysay Elementary School in New Lucban, and Dr. Josephine Ana ‘Jo-ann’ Borja Erece, a medical doctor, who was class valedictorian at the St. Louis Center.
He finished Bachelor of Laws in only 3 years, and has a postgraduate diploma in Legal Studies (summa cum laude equivalent), a Master of Laws with High Distinction (summa cum laude equivalent) from the Australian National University in only 10 months and a credential of Readiness in Business Analytics, Economics for managers and financial account from Harvard University in only 3 months.
At present, Erece is already a senior-ranked commercial litigator and disputed resolution expert at Corney and Ling Law Firm in Brisbane, Australia and represents clients internationally in disputes against multinational companies such as the Mercedes Benz and international alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
He completed his Masters in Corporate Law (magna cum laude equivalent) in only 9 months from the University of Cambridge and served as the first Filipino to be the associate editor of the Cambridge Law Review in 2021, the longest university journal in the United Kingdom.
He is a product of the now-defunct Stanford education program for gifted youth, and advocated reading for the rights of audiences at the Bars of England and Wales, New York and Queensland, a feat never before achieved in law history at his young age.
Erece was evaluated by educational psychologists and lead educators to be profoundly gifted with an intelligence quotient (IQ) beyond the 160 limit and that he consistently excelled in academics as well as in athletics, especially in taekwondo and basketball, aside from being a chess master, a book author and a gifted violinist.
He started martial arts at the age of 5 in Tokoroa, New Zealand; awarded his black belt at the age of 8 by the New Zealand Olympic coach; became the youngest New Zealand taekwondo instructor at Sejong Taekwondo at Waikato University in Hamilton, New Zealand at the age of 14; trained with the New Zealand Olympic taekwondo team; was awarded his 3rd dan black belt in July 2010; and presently the youngest local taekwondo instructor at the Kukkiwon World Taekwondo headquarters.
With a height of 6 feet and 2 inchers, Erece is a highly recruited basketball point guard, who has been offered athletic scholarships by coaches and agents from Manila-based universities to play for the Universities Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) and the Philippine National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), invited for ‘walk-on’ trials with academic scholarships by the United States NCAA Division 1 universities, and to play for the Nike all-Australian Tour to the United States.
He became the youngest player in the semi-professional Greater Brisbane League tournament, the team captain of the champion St. Johns College Blue in Hamilton, New Zealand, voted in the Mythical Selection Team for the New Zealand junior secondary championships held in Rotorua, New Zealand in 2013.
As a gifted athlete, Erece holds the current acceleration Australia record for no-step vertical jump for 15-year old athletes (all sports) which still holds today; captained the Waikato Hockey Association under 15 rep teams and played in the under 15 Filipino team for Hamilton; led the St. Johns senior blue team to the regional pool championships.
As a chess master, Erece was the top player at the St. Johns chess team during the North Island championships at St. Paul’s College, Hamilton in 2011, and defeated nationally ranked senior chess players in New Zealand in only his sophomore year in spite of being the youngest player at board 1.
As a book author, he published ‘The Grand Powers’ his first fantasy short novel at only 8 years old which was made available for general circulation at the New Zealand public library system through a local Cambridge bookstore. He continues to write 5-star rated books available for purchase on Amazon and Kindle, such as pieces that include ‘syzygy and one’ and ‘Starlight legacies.’
As a gifted musician, he is also an accomplished violinist. He learned violin at the age of 6, participated in various youth symphony orchestras, entered secondary school as an academic and music scholar at St. Johns College, performs with the Waikato Youth orchestra and St. Johns Sacred Heart College combined orchestra in New Zealand, made his first musical composition at age 6, creating an addendum to ‘twinkle-twinkle little star,’ for his sister, Maynah Erece, on her first birthday (also a gifted and talented prodigy), claiming the song to be incomplete, and continues to play through church-based ministry, having gone through formal music training at Trinity college, London.
