A successful practicing lawyer. A celebrated Regional Trial Court Judge. A feared and respected Sandiganbayan Justice. An able Presidential Legal Counsel. The first female chairman of the Commission on Elections. She’s very much in the news lately—Justice Harriet Obias Demetriou.
A native of Tabaco City, Albay, she possesses a legal mind as sharp as the handicraft items of sundang, labaha and gunting of which her home city is famous for. With her landmark decision in GR121039-45, January 25, 1999, People of the Philippines v Mayor Antonio L. Sanchez, et al., she has undoubtedly enriched the legal folklore in the Philippines. Justice Demetriou’s last government post was as chairman of the powerful Comelec.
Appointed by President Joseph “Erap” Estrada, she voluntarily resigned from her post when former President Estrada was deposed —an act unheard of in present day government where the credo is morir antes demitir. Except for serving as the counsel for the principal accused in the so-called Oakwood Mutiny, she has practically led a quiet life until reports came out that former Calauan Mayor Sanchez would be released due to good conduct time allowance. Then she went ballistics and decried that the author of the most heinous crime “hatched in hell” deserves no mercy. She was the Pasig RTC Judge who convicted Mayor Sanchez and his cohorts to seven 40-year terms for the 1993 rape-slay case of Eileen Sarmenta and the murder of her friend Allan Gomez. The Supreme Court affirmed her decision and even increased her award of damages to the families of the victims. She’d rather see them rot in inferno. She considers it a travesty of justice and a mockery of the SC if persons guilty of heinous offenses who are disqualified from getting credit for time allowance under RA 10592 are allowed to enjoy early freedom. I salute the eminent jurist for her vigilance that the justice she meted out is served to the fullest. As the 2014 American musical play proclaimed, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
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Last weekend, I attended the leadership summit of the Insular Life Gold Eagle College Scholarship Program consisting of former high-school valedictorians that earned their college education as grantees of the much-coveted program. It was organized “to unravel the ways on how to use one’s education for the greater good.” Since they started the program in 1963, over 10,000 graduates from all over the country have benefited from it, making the program one of the most successful educational programs sponsored by the private sector.
The moving spirit of this worthy project is herself an exemplary student during her time, and who strongly believes that education is the great equalizer. It has been her life story that she unselfishly shared to the young college graduates and professionals who attended the summit. Through education, she overcame her humble beginnings to become an exceptional business and corporate leader, both here and abroad. She built her career in banking, mostly with foreign multinational banks where she held top corporate positions, which no Filipino woman has achieved before her. As a top executive of CitiGroup, she was a highly respected global banking leader. She set up the private banking business and headed ANZ’s Asia-Pacific region in Singapore, and later on served as the PCEO of the Philippine Bank of Communications. Now, she is the first woman to become the chairman and CEO of Insular Life in its 108-year history. Together with the IFC, she conceived and formed InLife Sheroes, a movement that champions and empowers Filipinas by making them achievers. Nina D. Aguas holds the distinction of being the first Filipino to be elected in the World Bank Advisory Council on Gender and Development, which aims to promote gender equality and advance women as leaders in business, education and government. Her advice to the young is “not to neuter their imagination nor edit their ambitions.” Ever benevolent and kind-hearted, she admonished the new professionals that “while we live in this technology-driven world, remember that, as one writer has said, to be kind is more important than to be right.
Many times what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.” One writer described Nina “as one woman who exemplifies the true Filipina. Her soft-spoken demeanor is strong enough to silence the room.” How true! I sat across her for a couple of years inside the Board Room of UnionBank.
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Two extraordinary women of our times. Outstanding graduates of UST. Women of influence and gravitas. They revolve in different orbits but radiating force commanding respect from people within their respective spheres. They are women ahead of their times who have shattered glass ceilings paving the paths easier for womankind to pass through and reach the top.