August 2012

24
IBP: Celebrating 40 years, 1973-2013
Our country re-emerged in democ-
racy following the 1987 People Power
Revolution, with high hopes for a truly
accountable government. Sadly, the fall
of one leader after another - political and
judicial - has caused the sentiments of our
countrymen to descend to a state of de-
spair and surrender. In part, cynicism de-
veloped from the perception that the 1987
Constitution had been assaulted, manipu-
lated, and pulled from one direction to an-
other, even by those who are supposed
to uphold it. Some blame the Supreme
Court for having faltered in this duty and to
have likewise failed in upholding the rule
of law. To them, it is because the leaders
of the Court appear to have clay feet, and
its Members suspected to vote with mixed
motives. It is with this grave thought that
I view our nation's present search for a
new Chief Justice as a search for the re-
mooring ofthe Filipino soul.
I have made myself available to lead
the judiciary, not from any sense of entitle-
ment, but because those who have nomi-
nated me believe that I bring a dimension
to the debate on the kind of leadership
the judiciary needs, that has not yet been
brought forth. And to share with you why
I agreed to be nominated, I will have to
share with you my life - who I am, who I
have been, how I think, how I feel, how I
have made decisions in my 52 years.
My journey to this point has been
marked by strong challenges to the values
and principles that hold dear. With perse-
verance, courage and an abiding faith in
God's sovereignty, I have prevailed over
those trials and. have come to discern my
defning public role as a humble servant of
our people - through the judiciary.
I was born to a simple family. My
mother, a native of Bae, Laguna, taught
at a public high school in the evening
vIsIoN,
Courage &
aCCouNtaBIlIty
Maria Lourdes P. A. Sereno
Associate Justice, Supreme Court
and operated a cottage industry in the
daytime. My father, who hails from Siasi,
Sulu, was for the most part of his life a
small entrepreneur, whose efforts were,
like those of many small entrepreneurs,
mostly unsuccessful. Though we were of
modest means, my parents believed in
the value of books. They would scour the
newspapers to locate expatriate families
disposing of books in garage sales. Hard-
up as we were, they would buy us those
precious books. It was, in solitude with
those books, that I developed my skills
and habit of refection, which served me
well in later years.
I am a proud product of the public
school system. I graduated with honors
from the Kamuning Elementary School
and the Quezon City High School. I re-
ceived scholarships from the government
and from a private-foundation to obtain an
economics degree at the Ateneo de Ma-
nila and a Bachelor ofLaws Degree from
the University ofthe Philippines. In Ateneo,
the Jesuits imbibed in me the value of de-
veloping oneself to be a "man for others."
In UP, I learned from the country's leading
minds in constitutional, civil, and criminal
law; and was introduced to nonconven-
tional approaches in legal analysis. My
philosophy of law is heavily informed by
what I learned in those great universities.
I also fully learned that poverty, far from
being an excuse to engage in self-pity,
is but a testing ground for hard work and
excellence. By God's grace, I graduated
valedictorian from the UP College of Law.
Like most married female lawyers, I
faced the challenge of choosing between
a prestigious law practice and taking care
of my family. joined the largest law frm
in the country after graduation that offered
enormous professional challenge,' with a
lifetime of wealth and privilege. But two
years into the practice saw me struggling'
between work and caring for a young in-
fant, with another one on the way. Decid-
ing that my family was more important to
me, resigned from the law frm, and took
the low-paying job of a law professor.
Some partners of the frm warned me
I would regret the decision to resign. One
even said: "You know what you are? You
are afraid of success." In their eyes, I was
degrading my family's chances in life by
leaving. I was only 26, but I thought that
their defnition of success was not rel-
evant to me. What mattered to me at the
time left the law frm was that should do
the right thing, and the right thing for me
was to be near my young children, and to
make my husband happy.
I immensely enjoyed the challenges
of teaching law at UP. I unfolded mental
maps in the different felds of civil and
commercial law, maps that my students
appreciatively developed further. This ap-
preciation by young people and suffcient
time with my children convinced me that
simultaneous personal and professional
fulfllment is attainable for women.
I practiced part-time. Like any other
lawyer, I also faced temptations to take
shortcuts, to bend the law, and to look
the other way. I was not oblivious to well-
meaning encouragement from colleagues
to take the easy way out. But each time I
succeeded in resisting these enticements,
I found myself growing in the strength
to adhere to the right path. I constantly
sought to diminish the infuence of these
temptations in my life, so that I would al-
ways be free to do what was right.
In 1993, after I obtained my Master
of Laws degree from the University of
Michigan in Ann Arbor, my friends urged
me to stay .in America and have our visas
converted to working visas for the sake
e Bar Tribune
25
IBP: Celebrating 40 years, 1973-2013
of our children. Friends reproached me
by asking what I was to go back to in the
Philippines - a UP professor's life and sal-
ary? I knew, however, that dishonoring my
commitment to return to my country and
serve was not the right decision. So we
returned.
I continued to write on and teach Law
and Economics and International Trade
Law. Even without the incentive of a huge
income, I persisted in making contribu-
tions to forge a new area in the practice
of law in the country. On the recommen-
dation of Justice Florentino Feliciano, the
Supreme Court invited me (I was then 34)
to deliver a speech on International Trade
Law, the frst of its kind, before the Court's
Session Hall. Years of hard work yielded
opportunities to become a legal consult-
ant for the government in international
trade law and to be appointed as the frst
Asian legal counselor of the WTO's Ap-
pellate Body Secretariat in Geneva. My
contributions to international trade law
were recognized in 1998, when I was
named one of The Outstanding Women in
the Nation's Service for law.
Organizational diffculties
also tested my grit. At 26, to-
gether with a team of profes-
sionals, I had co-written the
organizational plan of the Pres-
idential Commission on Human
Rights. As a law professor in
UP, I had stood up for aca-
demic freedom in a professor's evaluation
of student performance and for effective
teaching, even if it had cost me great per-
sonal pain, As head of two units in UP, I
was able to productively run them despite
severely limited budgets. For my success
in causing the publication of one of the
highest numbers of journals and books, I
became a fnalist in UP's search for the
Most Outstanding Research Administra-
tor. At 35, I wrote the concept paper on
judicial reform for the UNDP. That paper
was to serve as a seed for the large-scale
donor-funded judicial reform programs
currently in place. I continued to partici-
pate in some of those programs for some
more years.
Those organizational experiences
whetted my interest in information tech-
nology. At 36, I wrote the legal infrastruc-
ture for the frst paperless securities trad-
ing in the country, that for the Bureau of
Treasury. I would pursue this advocacy
for paperless, electronic transactions and
research when I co-founded Accesslaw in
1999 with former Justice Jose Campos,
Commissioner Haydee Yorac and other
UP Law professors. It was the company
that created the frst annotated electronic
research system in Philippine law.
I deepened my passion for consti-
tutional rule 'when, at age 39, I was ap-
pointed as the lone female member of the
25-Member Presidential Commission on
Constitutional Reform headed by Chief
Justice Andres Narvasa, together with
leaders as important as former Prime
Minister Cesar Virata. As Chairperson of
the Steering Committee, I shepherded
the work of the various Committees into a
framework that showed economic issues
in the context of the Constitution.
At 43, I became local co-counsel for
the Philippines in the two international ar-
bitration cases involving NAIA Terminal 3,
a role was to discharge for nearly fve
years. I reported to Cabinet Secretaries in
Malacaang and to the Solicitor General.
I resigned in 2008 because of important
policy differences with one of my princi-
pals. The country won both cases at the
ICSID and the ICC, but the victory in the
former was to be subsequently partially di-
minished. Afterwards, I focused my efforts
on developing policy reforms to improve
governance and the country's economy
as head of the Asian Institute of Manage-
ment's policy think-tank - the AIM Policy
Center.
Considering what I have had to face,
taking on one challenging role after anoth-
er, I believe it was my consistent decision
to take the diffcult road and my ability to
think "out of the box" when solving prob-
lems that opened opportunities for me to
do much pioneering and sensitive work.
It helped that I had steeled myself to be-
come immune to the promise of ease from
compromises and had submitted myself
to the fres of adversity, in order to uphold
what was true and excellent. Little did I re-
alize then that I was being prepared for
my present role.
In 2010, at age 50, I was appointed
by President Aquino on the basis of what
he believed I could deliver for justice and
judicial reform. Prior to my swearing in, I
had only met him twice - the frst in 2008
when gave him a briefng on the Japan-
Philippines Economic Partnership Agree-
ment; and the second in 2010, during the
anniversary celebration of GMA 7. I had
no political affliation to rely on; there was
no infuential business bloc supporting
me; I did not have well placed relatives;
and neither was a media fgure. Perhaps
there is a place under the judicial sun for
the quiet and hard-working ones.
would face diffcult choices in my new
role. A day after my assumption of offce,
I took an active role in the oral argument
involving Hacienda Luisita, despite the
Chief Justice saying I was not expected to
participate. Weeks later, raised two im-
portant policy questions for the Court: Can
a case that is already with the Supreme
Court and that has already been heard in
oral argument be subjected to mediation
as ordered by the Chief Justice? And can
the Chief Justice individually give such an
order that constitutes a major policy deci-
sion?
Three weeks after my appointment, I
would object to the issuance of a tempo-
rary restraining order for a Petition that I
and other justices had not even seen - in
the case involving the impeachment of
former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutier-
rez.
Five weeks later, I was to object to
the majority's characterization of the De-
cision in Vinuya v. Secretary of Foreign
Affairs as "honest, hard work."
Instead, I showed a chart that
compares passages from the
Decision that were lifted verba-
tim from other works. I endured
much adversity, because I re-
fused to call what was black,
white. I was wrongly accused
of having committed a similar
offense, but I refused to back down from
my Dissent. In a twist of poetic justice, I
was vindicated, as it turned out that it was
my work that had been plagiarized.
I objected to any attempt to sanction
the professors decrying the Vinuya De-
cision. I thought that in order to gain the
moral authority to impose any disciplinary
measure on them, the Court frst had to
gain the moral high ground by admitting
its own mistakes and correcting the re-
cord. This was, of course, not an easy
stance to take.
My dissents in various highly con-
troversial cases have been written about
and quoted. I disagreed with the major-
ity's striking down the executive order
creating the Philippine Truth Commission,
their upholding the laws creating the 16
cities, their upholding the creation of the
Province of Dinagat Island, their awarding
20% share in San Miguel Corporation in
favor of Danding Cojuangco as against
the government's claim, their grant of a
TRO.in favor of former President Gloria
Arroyo in November 2011, their grant of
a TRO against the Senate's subpoena
of the Philippine Savings Bank account
documents of then Chief Justice Renato
Corona, and their prohibition on the dis-
I believe it was my consistent decision
to take the difficult road and my ability to
think out of the box when solving problems
that opened opportunities for me to do much
pioneering and sensitive work.
August 2012
26
IBP: Celebrating 40 years, 1973-2013
closure of material information to the Sen-
ate impeachment court.
What has been not equally publicized
is that I voted against the administration on
the grant of a TRO in favor of Bai Omera
Lucman in one of the Executive Order No.
2 (E.O. 2) cases and partially against the
ARMM Synchronization Law that was and
is a key program of the President's Lib-
eral Party.What also seems to be forgot-
ten is that in July of last year, my Dissent
in the frst Hacienda Luisita Decision was
heralded by the farmers, the media and
scholars alike, for it demolished the ma-
jority's argument to support the holding
of a referendum on the Stock Distribution
Option. One columnist-professor called it
"rare and brave" for a new appointee of
the President to have written what I had.
What the above shows is that take
my oath of offce very
seriously. While tradi-
tion has witnessed jun-
ior justices rarely being
heard, I believe that the
Constitution requires all
Members of the Court to
apply all their strength
and skills to understand
every case before them,
and to participate vigor-
ously so that the truth-
might be unearthed, and
that justice be done. I
believe that the con-
stitutional design of collegiality requires
the exercise of everyone's conscience
in a transparent manner in en banc and
division discussions, without inhibitions
brought about by the comparative insuf-
fciency of age or seniority. While seniority
has its rightful place in preserving tradi-
tions of the Court, to believe that ' it should
dominate deliberations and adjudication
is not to take our oath of offce seriously.
My past 52 years have been not
young years; rather, they have been years
of adversity, and of overcoming adversity.
Years of paying the price for my convic-
tions, of inconvenience, of having to work
doubly hard, of avoiding shortcuts and
the easy road. Those years were also
years of proving my mettle, of holding my
own, and of testing by fre the quality of
my judgment and instincts before inter-
national judges, chief justices and associ-
ate justices of the Supreme Court, cabi-
net secretaries, heads of universities and
very senior professors. I have been honed
in the world of the wise, the elders, and
key public leaders. I have steadily - with-
out wasting time - forged years of gaining
wisdom, of gaining a tranquil sense of the
world, of understanding the real meaning
of leadership and stewardship.
For what is leadership if it is not the
willingness to fall as a grain of wheat falls
to die, in order that more abundant life can
spring forth? In all those years of leading
people, I have not asked anyone to make
a sacrifce, to go through any hardship
that I was not willing to bear myself. I have
not asked others to improve their work un-
less my own revealed an unrelenting drive
for excellence. Yet, in calling for sacrifce
and excellence, I have always remem-
bered that we are all human, and that our
destinies ultimately lie in the hands of our
Creator.
My leadership is to be exercised to
uphold the truth the way I have sought to
uphold the truth. It is to be exercised in
favor of those who are weak, in order that
justice in its true sense may be rendered.
It is to apply the rule of law in a way that
shows no favoritism for the privileged, no
existence of the "old boys club" and no
need for the informal network of brokers
and lobbyists. My view on the rule of law
is concretized by two Dissenting Opinions
I have written - in Paulino v. Varilla and in
FASAP v. PAL. Rules of procedure are not
to be strictly construed against the poor;
and in the Paulino Resolution, not against
the poor policemen in the case. But they
are to be so construed against PAL vis-
a-vis the illegally dismissed employees
who had won three successive Decisions
affrming their position. f rules are meant
to facilitate justice, then when these rules
frustrate justice especially when the sys-
tem itself creates the injustice - genuine
justice must be allowed to prevail.
If we are to uphold the rule of law,
then we in the Court must be perceived to
be fair and predictable. There is nothing
mysterious about how I analyze things,
how I come to a conclusion, and how I
ultimately vote. There is nothing layered
about me; no context you have to imag-
ine, no agenda you have to fathom. I am
who I am, I vote what I think. I say what
I mean, and I mean what I say. As one
fellow justice, puzzled by my unexpected
willingness to be upfront about things,
asked a colleague who was perceived to
be close to me who I really was, the latter
replied: "Ganyan lang talaga yang si Jus-
tice Sereno, kung anong paniwala nya,
sinasabi nya."
I have no hidden, personal agenda,
and I have no interest in creating one. I
simply see my role as a judge as a hum-
ble; yet highly edifying one. We justices
of the court are to simply apply the law to
the truth that is staring us in the face, af-
ter much searching by the mind and after
much refection by the heart. t is a humble
role because we can go no further than
what the Constitution, the law, and the
rules of statutory construction allow us.
We do not replace the shared values of
the community with our own. Yet, our role
as judges is a highly edifying one to soci-
ety. For in invoking the lofty vision of the
Constitution, in painting
before our people the
prospect of a more just
society, in living upright
lives in order that we
can be in a position to
tell our people "This is
the truth, this is the right
way, this is the path," we
are edifying our society
and building for future
generations a founda-
tion that is built on solid
rock - not on the passing
fancies of politics, but on
the more enduringvalues of our people.
It has been asked how I can be the
Chief Justice if I am largely known as a
dissenter. Was Chief Justice Claudio
Teehankee unqualifed when he was so
appointed because of his reputation as a
dissenter? Or did not his brave dissent in
the face of much opposition by the estab-
lished majority in fact qualify him to lead
the Court in its period of renewal? Yes,
I was a dissenter in the highly explosive
political cases, and I will again dissent if
there is a concerted effort to deny obvious
truth, but in a high majority of the Deci-
sions promulgated since I joined the court,
I have acted with the majority and penned
many important Decisions that were con-
curred in unanimously. My colleagues in
the court have sworn to the same oath of
offce and are bound by the same Con-
stitution. We are all professionals. And
believe I have gained the respect of my
colleagues with the quality of my writing
and analysis and with the very hard work
I have put in.
The judiciary is not only the Supreme
Court, but also its 1,700 other justices
and judges nationwide. It is supported by
24,000 other court offcers and person-
nel. These are the public servants I am
My view on the rule of law is concretized by two Dissent-
ing Opinions I have written - in Paulino v. Varilla and in
FASAP v. PAL. Rules of procedure are not to be strictly con-
strued against the poor; and in the Paulino Resolution, not
against the poor policemen in the case. But they are to be so
construed against PAL vis-a-vis the illegally dismissed employ-
ees who had won three successive Decisions affirming their po-
sition. If rules are meant to facilitate justice, then when these
rules frustrate justice especially when the system itself creates
the injustice - genuine justice must be allowed to prevail.
e Bar Tribune
27
IBP: Celebrating 40 years, 1973-2013
willing to lead. Recently, two newly ap-
pointed judges sought to take their oaths
of offce before me. One went up all the
way to Baguio with her entire family, so
that I could be the one to administer her
oath. The other was a Muslim judge, who
brought with him his pregnant wife, an
infant daughter and other relatives. Both
were largely unfamiliar to me, but both
said the same thing: they sought me out
to administer the oath to them, because
I am their role model, and they want to
pattern their professional lives after mine
especially the strength of my convictions
as refected in my writings. The wife of
the male judge expressed the hope that
her daughter would grow up to be like me.
Separately, a senior judge sent me word
that newly appointed female RTC judges
had conveyed to him that they look up to
me as a role model. A colleague in the
Court has confded to me that the younger
judges are rooting for me to succeed in
bucking the system, and that he is con-
fdent will so succeed. These incidents
have strongly convinced me of my leader-
ship role.
f am to lead, then my frst duty is to
inspire. And I can only inspire if I under-
stand the hopes and aspirations of every
member of the judiciary and its staff for a
better future for their families. And I think
I do understand - what it is to be part of
the struggling poor, who make up much
of the rank and fle in the judiciary. But
also understand the sense of dignity and
honor of members and staff of the judici-
ary, how they equally dream of justice be-
ing realized in our country, and that they
are important channels of justice. And if I
have overcome, then I say that we in the
judiciary and the legal profession can col-
lectively overcome. We can overcome not
only our personal obstacles, but also the
cultural prejudices that have prevented us
from becoming a great judiciary, a noble
profession.
The judiciary must regain the trust
of our people, so that Congress can en-
trust to it the funds to make the delivery of
justice effcient and their families secure.
I hope to regain that trust by presenting
myself as a leader worthy of trust, and my
work and my life as proof that the people's
trust will not be misplaced. I am a servant
of the public, and if asked to lead the judi-
ciary, I would also be a steward of public
treasures and of the lives of the men and
women who have made service in the ju-
diciary their career. It would be my duty to
succeed.
To demonstrate that we in the judici-
ary have no skeletons to hide, if appoint-
ed, I will disclose to the public our case
disposal rate; offcial reports on our budg-
et and COA's audit of our expenditures;
the state of our various funds, including
support funds from the donor community;
and I will, in consultation with the commu-
nity, set key result areas with milestone
dates by which we will measure our per-
formance.
I present 18 years of possibilities,
of being able to conduct a deep search
for the best and the brightest in our land,
who are to be set apart as a generation
of judges who will commit themselves to
lives of uprightness and excellence. I am
willing - through how I have lived, and how
will live - by God's grace, to be the frst to
be daily tested if I meet the highest stand-
ard of integrity and credibility. I am willing
to be measured by the degree of sacrifce
I make, by what I am willing to give up in
order that the vision of a judiciary that is
truly noble, upright, independent, learned
and excellent in every way can become a
reality.
Atty. Miles Santos (left), com-
panion of the late Atty. Leonardo
Jacinto Soriano, receives the
welfare beneft assistance check
from Atty. Alicia Risos-Vidal, IBP
Peer Assistance Director.
The Bar Tribune misidentifed
this picture that was published in
the June 2012 Bar Tribune and
regrets the error.
ERRATUM
I reiterate what I had said in your na-
tional convention last year in Subic that
no friend of mine, including the IBP presi-
dent, gains anything from my appoint-
ment, save for the thought that I will not
let the country down. I shall continue to be
our people's steward of justice - resolving
disputes with an even hand and an eye
towards re-establishing faith in the rule of
law. Indeed, even my husband does not
gain anything from my appointment. As
proof of this, I watched silently last year
as the Court en banc reversed the victory
that my husband and his company had al-
ready merited from an RTC in Makati. If I
will not do anything ethically wrong to ad-
vance my husband's cause by refusing to
promote it with any of my fellow justices,
neither will I do it for anybody else.
I ask you to be with us in our journey.
I ask that you measure us, that you de-
mand of us, what is demanded by justice.
But also ask that you support us frst by
refusing to engage in practices that bring
disrepute to the judiciary; second,by help-
ing us identify the good souls who must
populate the ranks of the judiciary, and
third, by policing your own ranks and also
our ranks. I will also ask the IBP to con-
tinue its journey with us in legal reform,
especially in procedural reform. But I will
also ask you to be as excited as I am in
exploring frontier areas of law, as life in
our country and in this century become
increasingly complex. Together, we shall
restore our people's faith in a justice sys-
tem that works and responds to those who
desperately need it the most.
In the meantime, I wish you every
success and thank you for your patience.