Ms. Haydee Yorac, an exemplary Filipino

Our country's loss, Heaven's gain.

The trumpets must have sounded and the gates of heaven wide open for the grand entrance of an exemplary civil servant, Atty. Haydee Yorac.

She was known in UP Diliman as the feisty legal counsel with the unique hairstyle. She also had this unique voice with the malambing accent. Haydee Yorac was a class of her own, an exemplary Filipino and an exemplary, genuine public servant.

Her credentials speak loudly about the lady fighter: Exemplary public servant, lawyer, nationalist, intellectual, teacher and human rights activist.

" Mahal na mahal niya ang bayang ito," a friend told a tv interviewer.

And she never gave up working for our people, retrieving millions of ill-gotten wealth, ensuring clean elections, protecting the right to vote, and other rights of Filipinos.

She is the model of a genuine civil servant. Working regardless of low salary, doing her best wherever she found herself, in and out of the academe, in government, in sincere committed service for our people, she puts to shame those who claim to being real servants of our people.

Like Ms. Haydee Yorac, genuine public servants do not ask for help or support from others to do their work. The genuine ones just go ahead and quietly work. They not only work, they work without thought of rewards or handsome paybacks or glory or grandeur. Their reward is their being able to serve the masses, our people.

At a time when many of our people believe that elections will always be dirty, it is good to remind them that Haydee Yorac stood and fought for clean elections. She redefined the meaning of dirty elections by defying gold, goons and gun during her term as Comelec chairperson. Surely, she would not have allowed any Garci or even a president to disgrace the sacredness of the vote and the independence and integrity of the Comelec.

At this time when people no longer believe that there are honest government officials, Haydee Yorac is an exemplary model to cite and to remember. We must let her exemplary example be known, appreciated, and emulated by our youth and their children in the future. At this time when people think that people work solely and purely for money, wealth, and glory, Haydee Yorac shines with her sterling, true, honest work and service for our people throughout her life.

Had her health not failed her, we are sure she would have joined the crusade for truth and for the integrity of our votes and her beloved Comelec.

We certainly lost a fighter in Haydee. She who believed in the saying, " Let justice be done though the heavens fall," could have joined Raul Roco in denouncing all attempts to tamper with elections and the rights of our people. Rather than joining the protesting crowds, now she joins Raul Roco in the grand halls of Heaven. Behn Cervantes whom she defended during the Martial Law regime cried out, " why are the good ones taken ahead of those who do not deserve to be on this earth?" The good to be rewarded the highest award by the Lord, we are sure, and their opposite given as much time to repent and be reconciled with the Lord while on earth.

We join the Filipino people in thanking Ms. Haydee Yorac for selflessly sharing her life, her time, her work, and her love. Ms. Haydee Yorac will forever remain as The Exemplary Filipino in our hearts and memory.

As she rushes to the open arms of the Lord, as she happily moves on to claim her eternal reward in heaven, we accompany her with prayers and thanks for having shown us the true meaning of a genuine servant of the people and of the Lord.