Republika ng Pilipinas

Supreme Court
Manila

Commencement Speech of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes P.A. Sereno
69
th
Commencement Exercises
Philippine Christian University
April 13, 2013

Atty. Felix Carao, Justice Raoul Victorino, Justice Wenceslao Agnir,
administrators, faculty, and staff of Philippine Christian University, proud
parents, and dear graduates, good afternoon to you all.

Allow me to congratulate you on this very important day of your lives.
You are about to cross the threshold from academic life into the real world.
From being students, you are now about to enter the work force and become
productive members of society.

I have been asked to speak to you today about Nurturing Faith,
Transforming Character, Inspiring Service. Going Back to the Foundations of
Our Faith. All throughout your stay at the Philippine Christian University, you
have heard the words faith, character, and service repeated time and again.
What do these words mean now that you are about to cross the threshold and
make the transition?

Allow me to share my humble thoughts in my capacity as a Christian, as a
judge, and as a friend who has crossed the threshold ahead of you.

Service

Let me start with service. Now that you are graduating, I am fairly certain
that you are now starting to ask yourself the big questions of life: What am I
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going to do with my life? What am I here for? What kind of work will I do? For
whom? Where? What is my role, where is my place in society?

God has given each one of us, without exception, a unique mission, a
unique role to play in the world. However, He rarely spells this out for us with a
complete manual of instructions. As with most things in life, finding out ones
mission requires quite a bit of detective work. We need to figure things out as we
go along, doing our best to discern Gods will through prayerful reflection on the
events of our lives.

In my case, I never set out to be a judge or a lawyer for that matter. As a
young girl, my first passion was to be a journalist. There was something about
entering dangerous situations, uncovering the truth, and reporting it to people
that excited me and made me come alive. There was also a part of me that
wanted to become an artist.

However, I had to deal with the reality that becoming an artist or a
journalist was an extravagant dream that my family could not afford. We were
not a well-to-do family. My father was an entrepreneur long before that career
option became fashionable, starting a series of small businesses that never really
took off. My mom was a teacher at a public high school who also ran a small
bag-making business from home to help make ends meet. With two younger
brothers to support, I knew that my older sister and I both had to do well in
school so that we could help get our family out of poverty.

When I graduated from high school, I was blessed with a college
scholarship to study at one of the top schools in the Philippines. My first choice
was Political Science. But when I realized that the employment prospects for
political science graduates were bleak, I shifted to Economics where the chances
were more promising. And true enough, when I graduated, those prospects
materialized and I received many lucrative job offers.

But I turned them down. Even though my mind wasnt fully made up yet
about becoming a lawyer, at that time, I just knew that I had to take the law
school entrance exam. I knew that I had the skills and the character for it. So
when I found out that I passed the entrance exam, I decided to give law school a
chance. One semester, I said. And then I got a scholarship for the rest of my stay
in law school, which pretty much sealed it for me. I finished law school, passed
the Bar and became a lawyer. One thing led to another, and as they say, the rest
is history.
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If you had told me even 5 years ago that I would find myself on the
Supreme Court, I wouldnt have believed you. Never, for the life of me, did I set
out to become a judge, much less a Justice of the Supreme Court. So if any of
you have dreams of entering the judiciary and becoming Supreme Court justices
one day, my life history might not be the best case study for that.

But looking back, I realize that my life choices have stemmed from a
desire to serve, and to live for something bigger. First it was the desire to serve
my mother and my family by getting us out of poverty. And then my desire to
serve expanded to include the legal community, and eventually, the country. I
realize now that Gods expansion of my role and mission came with the
expansion of my desire to serve and do His will in the world.

Faith

Which brings me to the second point. What is the role of faith in our daily
lives? Is it possible to live a life of faith and to do Gods will in a world that is
becoming increasingly secular and materialistic?

To answer this question, we must look at the Philippine context. That we,
the Filipino people, are a people of faith is beyond doubt. An overwhelming
majority of our people believes in God or a Supreme Being, whether He is called
God, Yahweh, Allah, Christ, or Magbabaya. Our legal system is founded on the
Judeo-Christian tradition; the Ten Commandments are the bedrock of our legal
and moral code.

Our Constitution, the highest law of the land, recognizes and even
establishes a belief in God. The preamble of the Constitution reads:

We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of
Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society, and
establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and
aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our
patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings
of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime
of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and
promulgate this Constitution.

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The preamble is a prayer, and its express use of the phrase imploring the aid of
Almighty God shows that faith, religion, religious belief, and their various
forms of expression are realities that are recognized and accepted under
Philippine law. Both in law and in fact, we cannot deny the role of God and of
prayer in our collective life as a nation.

The Constitution also guarantees the right to ones religious belief, which
is enshrined in the Bill of Rights. Article III, Section 5 of the Constitution (1)
prohibits the State from passing any national or local law or administrative
regulation that prohibits the free exercise of religion; (2) prohibits the use of any
religious test for the exercise of any civil or political right; and (3) perpetually
recognizes the right of every Filipino to exercise and enjoy his or her religious
profession and worship, without discrimination or preference.

That we can freely profess our faith, express our beliefs, and live out a
Christian life without fear of persecution is a privilege. In certain countries
around the world, people of faith must pray in secret and hide the symbols of
their faith because of State repression and persecution. That we can freely wear
our belief in God on our sleeves is a privilege that we must not take lightly, and
certainly not for granted.

However, the greater challenge to us as people of faith is how to integrate
our faith with the demands of daily life in a secular society. Is it possible to be a
good Christian to live an upright, moral, principled life in accordance with the
values of Christ and be an efficient and productive member of society at the
same time?

Let me attempt to answer this question within the context of my role as a
judge. When I took my oath of office, I swore to uphold the Constitution and the
laws of the Philippines maintain the dignity and integrity of my office, and to
dispense justice to the best of my ability. This consists of several principles.

The first principle involves the exercise of the skills that I learned in law
school, particularly, the use of legal analysis and reasoning for the purpose of
analyzing a judicial dispute. My judicial oath requires me to exercise these skills
with a high level of excellence and personal and professional integrity.

The second principle is that I must exercise my duties as a judge with
utmost humility. I must recognize that I do not possess all the answers in the
world. I cannot solve all the ills besetting the people who bring their cases to the
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Court, nor can I hope to correct all wrongs affecting Philippine society. Through
my decisions as a judge, I can only do my best to help men cope, and hope to
give an approximation, a foretaste, however small, of Gods justice.

Humility also means recognizing that my oath of office allows me to use
only recognized sources of law, and that purely religious doctrines are not a
source of law as far as the Philippine legal system is concerned, even though as a
Christian I may believe in their immutability.

The third principle is that as a judge, I must understand the implications of
Philippine constitutionalism. Under the Constitution, the power to make law and
policy belongs not to the judiciary but to Congress. Thus, unless a law or
government policy contravenes the Constitution, as a judge, I must allow that
law or policy to take its legal course. I may disagree with the choice of policy or
the formulation of the statute either as a matter of preference or even conviction,
but I must set aside my personal misgivings and allow the electorate and
Congress free reign, subject only to the mandates and constraints of the
Constitution.

But at the same time, as a judge I must recognize that the Philippine
community that I serve has a shared set of common values that are articulated
and spread all over the Constitution. I must recognize these values values such
as faith, truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, peace as part of a holistic
framework by which the Constitution is to be interpreted, and reflect these
values in my decisions.

Character and Integrity

This brings me to the third point: character.

To reconcile these seemingly contradictory duties to uphold the
Constitution and the values of the Gospel at the same time requires strength of
character and integrity. The word integrity comes from the Latin word integritas
which means intact. It refers to the state of being whole and undivided, as well
as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. To have
integrity is to live your life consistent with your fundamental beliefs, so that your
inner spiritual life and your outer life in the world are in harmony with each
other.

To do this is not easy. This is precisely where ones faithfulness is tested.
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Ours is a culture where the pressure to conform is very great. Pakikisama,
bigayan, and smooth interpersonal relations are highly valued in Philippine
culture, and the pressure to just say yes, to go along with the crowd even if it is
not right, is very strong. To be able to do the right thing in the face of opposition
requires courage, strength of character, and integrity.

You will struggle with this, and you will have to choose. Some choices
may be relatively simple: do I submit mediocre work to my boss so that I can
watch the latest John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo movie with my friends right
after work, or do I put in additional time and work to ensure that what I hand in
is the best quality possible, even if it means missing the movie? Other choices
may be more difficult: do I insert P200 into my wallet when I hand it over to the
MMDA or police enforcer who pulls me over for a traffic violation, or do I
accept the ticket and the inconvenience that comes with it? Do I close my eyes to
irregularities in an office bidding, or do I tell my bosses about it? If I find out
that a fraternity brother or sorority sister is involved in unethical transactions, do
I keep silent or do something about it? In a legal dispute, do I resort to all means
necessary to ensure my victory?

To be able to do the right thing, and to resist compromising ones ideals
and values, requires faith. It requires believing and trusting in a God who sees
what you do even when you labor in secret, who knows what you struggle with
in your heart. And it requires perseverance and fortitude: the strength to persist
through challenges and struggles, and to choose what is right even when it is
difficult.

The process of struggling with these moral and ethical dilemmas, and the
choices that you make, will define you and shape you into the person that you
are to become. Do not shrink back or flee from the struggle. Instead welcome it
and embrace it. Welcome the opportunity to become like gold that is purified
under extreme heat, or a lump of coal that turns into a diamond when subjected
to extreme pressure.

Words of advice
As you are about to embark on your life journeys, allow me to leave you
with some words of advice, from one fellow traveler to another:
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Faith On the matter of faith: believe that God has a plan for your life
that is greater than anything you could possibly dream or envision for yourself.
Entrust your life to God and allow Him to lead you and speak to you through the
events of your life. Pray for wisdom and guidance, most especially when you do
not know the answers.

Service On the matter of service: live your lives for something bigger
and greater than yourselves. Humbly allow God to work through you to shape
the course of history. As you become workers and professionals, look at your
work as your place of ministry, where you can show the living reality of the
Gospel by how you talk, how you spend your time, how you value your families
and your communities, and how you preserve your integrity in every aspect of
your life.

Character On the matter of character: stand up for what is right,
regardless of the opinion of your peers, even when it is difficult, and most
especially when it is difficult. Do your best to live with integrity. As you are
tested, you will find that your faith in Christ, and the enabling grace of the Holy
Spirit will allow you to be strong even when you are weak, and will enable you
to make great sacrifices for your country and for the people you love.

As you venture out into the real world, know that the best expression of
our Christian faith is not in the outward performance of sacrifices or the rote
utterance of prayers. It is in the example of a life that shines powerfully like a
light in the midst of darkness; that is salt to a world in constant danger of decay.

And may you always carry with you your alma maters ideals of faith,
character, and service, as encapsulated in this reminder from the prophet Micah:

What does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)

Congratulations, and may God bless you all.

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