The Fisherman Of Lubao

A boy looks at a distant island, where the sounds of bombs and munitions fire rever-berate. His boat drifts along the coastline of Manila Bay in relative peace. Unaffected, at least for a time, he and his friends throw their nets into the sea. There is much fish and shrimp in the water—everyone else was busy with more important matters, leaving a plentiful supply for the group.

Three hours it took for them to get there, paddling from the faraway town of Lubao in Pampanga. It would take another three getting back. Six hours total for a boatload of fish and a ringside seat to World War II.

Hugo Gutierrez, Jr., never really dreamed of anything more than the hard-earned catch he brought home to his family. They traded the fish at the market for food and other goods. The work was rewarding enough in that his family never really went hungry even during the Japanese occupation. But for the 15-year-old Hugo, this was not the life he would know. Post-war Philippines would change everything, and the young man would find himself paddling away to another fate, to the great halls of justice of the land.

"I wanted to take up medicine," recounts Gutierrez.""But my father told me that we may not be able to afford that. With law, you can work in the daytime and study at night." It was a very fortunate thing then, that Gutierrez and two of his siblings were able to go to college at the same time.

Even before college, Gutierrez was already finding ways to earn a living. Aside from being a fisherman in 1942 during the occupation, he became a shipping clerk for the Quartermaster Corps of the Armed Forces, Western Pacific (AFWESPAC), an American command responsible for the reconstruction of Manila in 1945.

"When the U.S. forces came back I hitched a ride to Manila where I found a job as a shipping clerk at the pier. The Americans were preparing for their invasion of Japan so they were stockpiling materials here," he recalls. Gutierrez was at the pier, supervising the unloading of the cargo, and his job was to dispatch trucks to their correct boats and cargo holds.

From 1946 to 1950, Gutierrez enjoyed the privilege of being a University Scholar of the University of the Philippines (UP), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1952. That same year he passed the Bar and went to work at the US Veterans Administration in the Philippines as a supervising attorney, the first Filipino to be assigned to a Federal employee position normally reserved for citizens of the United States. The post enabled Gutierrez to go around the country, helping veterans, investigating claims, and making sure that orphaned children were properly given financial aid.

After his work with the Americans, Gutierrez moved on to a fledgling bureau called the Social Security System (SSS) in 1960. He slowly rose up the SSS ladder, starting as a commission technical assistant and ultimately becoming assistant manager of the Field Services Department. During this time, Gutierrez grabbed opportunities to further his education with a Fulbright-Hayes and DeWitt scholarship at the University of Michigan, where he earned a Master of Laws degree.

Gutierrez’s drive to learn, and continue learning, signaled a man who was willing to better himself, and a man who learned a lot could teach a lot too. Soon after his return from the US in 1965, he was drafted into UP as an Associate Professor of law where he taught for close to seven years. Concurrently, he also became head of the Division of Publications of the UP Law Center.

The 1970s for Gutierrez play out like a legal documentary. A year after Martial Law was declared in 1972, he found himself working in the government as Assistant Solicitor General. In just a few years, around 1977, he was appointed to the Court of Appeals as Associate Justice, only the second person in Philippine history to make a jump from the Solicitor General’s office to become Associate Justice at the CA.

Topping the number of cases finished at the CA made Gutierrez a prime candidate for the Supreme Court. Sure enough, by 1982, Gutierrez became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, finding a seat as its first 15th member.

For his work, Gutierrez was honored with a Doctor of Jurisprudence (honoris causa) from St. Anthony University in 1985. In 1990 he was bestowed the "Jurist of the Decade" award by the UP Law Alumni Association, one of many awards and honors given by public and private institutions in all his years of service.

Retired since 1993 and living a quiet life, Gutierrez currently presides as chairman of the board at Paramount Life and General Insurance Corporation. Enjoying retirement with his wife Esperanza—they met during choir practice in the late 1940s—Gutierrez nevertheless still does things related to his former career, such as consultancy work for GSIS, but mostly, he just relaxes and watches movies on DVD, a fitting reward for 40 years of serving the country.

Esperanza, a retired educator, is involved with the Supreme Court Ladies Circle as program director. She’s also president and director of the’Asosasyon Damas De Filipinas, which has an orphanage in Paco, Manila; and director of the Manila Girls Scouts. Together throughout his career, Hugo and Esperanza have traveled extensively and visited 51 countries over the years.

They have two children: Daniel, a lawyer, and Mae Carolyn, a pediatrician and pulmonologist who, unfortunately, passed away in 2002.

Aside from being chairman of Paramount Life, Gutierrez held many other positions in the private sector, but he gave all the rest up, except for Paramount Life because, he says, "I enjoy those people. I like the way the company takes care of its policyholders. And they are progressive also. They have entered into all kinds of services, including the direct marketing of affordable health and life insurance that cater to the needs of the old people."

Deep inside there is still a young fisherman who is grateful for all the years that have gone by.

"When I was a fisherman, there was a fishing outfit called a palapad; it’s a big bamboo raft with nets. When you enclose a portion of water and when the tide goes down, the fish get trapped. I thought to myself, ‘Kung magkaroon lang ako ng dalawang palapad, tama na ito.’ That was my mission in life at the time!" laughs Gutierrez.

With his wife beside him, life seems to be going just right.""We are very happy because we are satisfied with what we have."