GMA extols Justice Palma for ‘heroism, service’ to country

President Arroyo paid tribute to retired Supreme Court Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma yesterday for her "heroism and service" to the country and the people, especially for her fight against the brutal Marcos regime and for democracy.

Supreme Court justices also mourned Palma’s death. In a statement, Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban likened Palma to St. Therese, whose 132nd birthday happened to be Jan. 2, the day Palma died.

"Fittingly enough, she (Palma) left us for the Lord at the age of 92 on Jan. 2, the 132nd anniversary of the birthday of St. Therese of the Child Jesus," Panganiban said.

Palma, who led a life of firsts and blazed a pioneering trail for women in the judiciary and the legal profession, died at the age of 92 due to cardio-pulmonary failure at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City.

"Justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma’s memory will forever be enshrined in the annals of Filipina heroism and service," Mrs. Arroyo said.

"The courage she had shown in the country’s dark years will remain an inspiration to every Filipino woman who strives to make a difference and to prove that greatness can be achieved with unbending principle and wisdom," the President said.

Mrs. Arroyo said her family joins Filipinos in prayer for Palma’s "eternal peace in the hands of God."

Panganiban said St. Therese, through her little way, showed the faithful that they can serve God even in small things if done with great love and reminding the people that the Lord does not look so much at the greatness of the people’s actions or even at their difficulty, but at the love with which they do them.

"Justice Muñoz-Palma echoed the same philosophy when she said that grandiose acts are not the measure of greatness. It is the small things that we do in the name of love and service to God, country and fellow men that really count. There is no doubt in my mind that Justice Muñoz-Palma followed her own little way and is now claiming her eternal reward for a life well-lived in love and service," Panganiban said.

Panganiban said Palma’s death means a great loss not only to her family and the judiciary, "but also the entire Filipino nation to whom she has brought much honor and whom she has served so faithfully and well and with singular longevity, long after many of her contemporaries have faded away."

"Indeed for us who follow in her footsteps in the judiciary, she is a magisterial model of independence, integrity, industry and intelligence, my four ins of what a judge should be," Panganiban said.

Palma’s contemporary, retired Supreme Court justice Flerida Ruth Romero, said everyone will give Palma credit for being the first woman to occupy high government offices especially in the judiciary.

"She was brilliant. She was always No. 1 in everything. It was an awesome responsibility and burden for us lady justices who had to follow in her gigantic footsteps. I knew her to be a lady with a great heart and I had many intimate personal conversations with her," Romero said.

Justice Adolfo Azcuna said Palma was one of the country’s finest statesmen.

"She approached every problem, every challenge and every situation with the people and the country’s interest as the foremost and overriding criterion. At the same time, she submitted all her efforts in humble supplication to God and His providence. She made sure that the Constitution drafted under her watch would be pro-God, pro-people, pro-Filipino, pro-family and pro-environment," Azcuna said.

Palma was the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court in 1973. She was also the first woman to head a constitutional commission in 1986, in which she helped craft the Philippines’ Constitution, which Mrs. Arroyo is now campaigning to amend as part of her administration’s economic recovery efforts.

Fondly called "Celing" by her intimates, Palma was a woman who has blazed a trail many women lawyers seek to follow: She was the first woman to top the Philippine Bar with a score of 92.6 percent in 1937 after graduation from the University of the Philippines College of Law.

Palma also served as the country’s first female prosecutor in 1947 and the first woman judge of the Court of First Instance in the 1950s.

Last October, Palma was included in the International Women’s Hall of Fame as part of the elite global list of women who made significant achievements.

In the dark years of martial law, Palma’s convictions and courage came to the fore when she "dared to expose what she believed to be the shortcomings of the military regime and openly criticize its disregard of constitutional principles and disrespect for the human rights of the weak and the oppressed," retired Supreme Court justice Jose B.L. Reyes said in an interview with Starweek magazine published Oct. 16 last year.