During Yorac’s term as PCGG Chair, the country’s small coconut farmers made historic inroads in their struggle to recover the coconut levy funds whose ownership is being contested by businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, Jr. and COCOFED. Ms. Yorac’s principled stance made her irreplaceable in the arduous court battle for the full recovery of the coconut levy funds. She never wavered in her stand that the coconut levy funds are public in character. Neither did she entertain any form of compromise agreement that would jeopardize the integrity of the funds.

Unfortunately, the current PCGG administration seems to be veering away from the legal position taken by the late Chair Yorac. Already, the small coconut farmers are strongly feeling Ms. Yorac’s absence; especially since another compromise agreement with Mr. Cojuangco on the coco levy issue is being promoted.

Ms. Yorac’s untimely demise should prod government to push for the full recovery of the funds in favor of the millions of impoverished small coconut farmers. The current PCGG leadership is morally and legally bound to follow the examples set by the late Chair Yorac and must immediately dismiss the proposals coming from the camp of Mr. Cojuangco to forge another compromise agreement on the ownership of the funds.

Ms. Yorac never abandoned the small coconut farmers until her last breath. Her successors in the PCGG are expected to do nothing less.

Omi Royandoyan
Executive Director
Philippine Peasant Institute

Related posts:

1. The Nation’s Conscience has Risen to Heaven:
   A Tribute to Haydee Yorac
2. Doing Justice for Haydee
3. Telling the Truth and Getting Away With It

Tonight, the members and friends of the FREE LEGAL ASSISTANCE GROUP (FLAG) gather to pay a final farewell to our beloved colleague — HAYDEE.

We have just lost one of those who were the guiding lights of this organization during the darkest days of the struggle to restore democracy in this country. She leaves us, as we are again struggling to keep that democracy alive.

It’s hard to accept that Haydee is gone. Most of us took it for granted that she would always be there to turn to when we needed her. How indeed can one imagine this country without Haydee?

It is a little belated and how I wish we could have said this when she was alive, but in behalf of FLAG, may I extend our heartfelt thanks–Haydee–for all the guidance and leadership, the encouragement and inspiration, the sacrifices and the lessons learned.

If FLAG feels a special kinship for Haydee, it is because we were lucky to know her as few other groups perhaps had the privilege to know her. We came to know her up close, as a colleague and as a friend, for many years. And those were difficult years when the bonds between friends and even relatives were tested to the extreme. We got to know her as a real human being long before she would become the icon that she would be regarded years later.

And it is also because of this, that we in FLAG feel a special, personal, intimate sense of loss. The country may have lost one of its ablest public servants. FLAG has lost one of its dearest friends and leader.

As a law professor she responded quickly to the call of the late Sen. Jose W. Diokno to join in a revolt against a feared dictatorship. A difficult revolution because Ka Pepe asked that it be waged, not by arms, but by the law. And most of the time that meant the constitution and the law of the dictator.

While it could have been tempting to resort to other less peaceful means, FLAG tried hard to work within those parameters.

FLAG would not win many court victories with such a mandate. But much of its success came as they grabbed the law of the dictator and used it to demonstrate that they were not instruments of justice, but of oppression. They were not guarantees of freedom, but chains of control. And the oppressiveness of the law would be used to open the eyes of the people to their bondage and with that knowledge create unity and empowerment.

And Haydee was ever in the forefront. She was the Regional Coordinator of FLAG for Metro Manila for many years until Marcos fell in 1986. She was just at home arguing cases before the courts, as she was marching in the parliament of the streets, or delivering lectures to human lawyers and advocates, or consoling victims of tyranny and abuse.

For the cause of FLAG, during the dark night of martial law, with little regard for personal safety, she would travel to the mountains of Northern Luzon, to Southern Tagalog, to the Visayas, to Mindanao to serve as a reminder and a continuing inspiration for the struggle that many of us thought could not be won.

It was in the course of all those visits that members of FLAG came to know her as a friend and endear her to them as one of their own. While those times had more days of danger and even death, because many FLAG lawyers fell by the wayside in the search for freedom, there were also its light moments.

While many people would perhaps have an image of Haydee as a strict, stern, no-nonsense individual, that was not the complete picture. She had a soft, a funny and a human side.

We came to know that quality because we traveled with her, ate with her, worked with her and even drank with her. She could hold her drink better than most of us. She enjoyed exchanging news with FLAG lawyers. They would laugh and joke with her. Her familiar throaty laughter during evenings of fellowship in many a far-flung part of the country, would serve to make many young FLAG lawyers momentarily forget the perils of those times. If she was not afraid, why should we be afraid?

She would even allow them to tease her about her hairstyle. Something which Presidents, Senators, Generals and Cabinet members would perhaps not dare do, for fear of being nailed with that famous glare of hers. She saw very little need to use that glare in FLAG. FLAG was a home of sorts for her.

And whatever may have been said about her hairstyle, to most members of FLAG she was one of the most beautiful memorable persons we ever had the honor and the privilege to meet and to know. And for that we are grateful.

She was beautiful in her sincerity and courage. She was beautiful in her simplicity. She was lovable in her integrity, in her dedication, in her selfless commitment and in her incorruptibility. And she was beautiful above all because she devoted all of those God given virtues, not for herself, but for her country.

With Haydee, there was little pretense. There were no hidden agendas, no selfish personal motives, no malice, and no ambitions for personal gain or fame. She would, if she could, do what needed to be done, if it was country.

That perhaps is why she had such tremendous credibility. That is why she was so respected, not only by her friends, but also by those who had the misfortune of finding themselves on the other side in the many battles that she had waged.

Despite her strong and seemingly stern public image, few harsh words were ever said against her from those to whom she may have directed her wrath and indignation. That was because they knew that the positions she took were never due to any personal rancor, they were for love of country. And it is difficult to quarrel with that.

And the qualities of Haydee were tested not only by the battles she waged against government during the time of the dictator, but also by the efforts she exerted to lend credibility to the administrations that came after the fall of the dictator.

When Haydee joined the government many had serious misgivings. We feared that her will and idealism would not stand, and she would soon be swept away by the currents of intrigue and corruption that plague our government. But she proved us wrong.
She, by herself, was such a powerful force that all Presidents after martial law tried to borrow from that credibility and enlist her help.

She joined the Commission on Elections, and her COMELEC was definitely far more credible than the Comelec that we have today. With her there, it would have been impossible to produce a “Hello Haydee” tape. Woe would befall anyone who would have dared call Haydee by phone and tell her what to do in an election contest. Among her favorite stories in FLAG meetings was how she tamed even the much feared Ali Dimaporo.

When she agreed to head the PCGG, many thought it was a dead-end. The ghosts of the Marcos regime continued to haunt the corridors of the agencies looking for his wealth and were determined to thwart every effort. Again she proved us wrong. What she achieved there would be difficult to equal. It earned her the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

I was about to say Haydee is a true Filipino patriot. But two nights ago, I was watching television and I saw Ping Lacson. He said that Aragoncillo and Michael Ray Aquino are patriots. If that is the new definition of patriotism, from someone who wants to be President, then Haydee does not belong in that company.

The irony of Philippine politics is that people who are admittedly less qualified than Haydee find it easier however to get to the Senate.

It is unfortunate that we lose Haydee at this stage of our journey. The country is clearly in turmoil. Our people are as anxious, as they are confused. The future is not clear. We live today without any clear idea of what may come tomorrow. Our highest ambition is the hope that tomorrow we will survive.

We are in search of someone or something to lead us out of this forest of misery. In the countryside there is disenchantment. They look at our leaders, from all sides, with skepticism. They see one side trying hard to hold on to power by using all means, fair and mostly foul. They see the other side trying very hard to take that power without however any hint or promise of any real and meaningful change. They see unrepentant and arrogant remnants of the regime that Haydee fought against. In the end, the choices look suspiciously similar to each other and many find no strong reason to unite under one, or the other.

It is during times like these that we miss people like Haydee. From her we would have listened. Not only because she was gifted with a special clarity of mind and objectivity of intellect, but more importantly because what she would have said, would have been accompanied by a moral tone, as credible as it is unquestionable, because it is anchored upon an impeccable record of public service reflective of a true and honest concern for the country.

Perhaps it is that element of moral trustworthiness more than anything else that our people seek in the present crisis. It is perhaps because they fail to recognize it in any of the present aspirants to power and leadership that we continue to drift in uncertainty and discord.

Only the Supreme Law Giver can explain why He would pluck Haydee from our midst, just when we needed her again. Is it because her death would make us understand and appreciate better the message she was trying to convey by her life and by her examples?

Only the Almighty would really know. But it would be a pity if we would not allow Haydee, and the life she led, to guide us in the search for solutions to the problems of our nation. A nation she loved above anything else and even at the sacrifice of her health.

We should not ask her for anything more. She has done her part. She has done more than enough. She deserves her peace.

It is for us to honor her memory by keeping alive the principles she stood for in public service and use them to judge those who may wish to lead this country and claim that they have the best interests of our people at heart.

There is one effective test for all of them.

Can they pass the glare of a HAYDEE YORAC?

Related posts:

1. The Nation’s Conscience has Risen to Heaven:
   A Tribute to Haydee Yorac
2. Doing Justice for Haydee
3. Telling the Truth and Getting Away With It

Haydee Yorac told it like it is. This is about as rare in public life as a polar bear in Boracay. If it were more common, our country wouldn’t be in the fix it is in today. There would be no need for apologies, no crises triggered by “lapses in judgment.”

Haydee dazzled because she told the unvarnished truth.

“Truth, like light, blinds,” one of her favorite writers, the existentialist Albert Camus wrote. “Falsehood,” said Camus, “is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”

If there is anything that Haydee’s life has shown us, it is this: You can tell the truth and get away with it. You can tell the truth and still be so loved, so respected and so feared. Haydee knew, much more than anyone in public life today, the awesome power of truth, of honesty and of personal integrity.

Unfortunately, truth telling is uncommon these days, not just in politics but also in the profession to which I belong. I have been in journalism for over 20 years and I can tell you that the media often give more space to the “beautiful twilight” of falsehood, flattery and prevarication than to the glaring light of truth.

This is why we needed Haydee. She showed us glimpses of that light. She had a bullshit detector better than anyone of us had. I know this from personal experience because some years ago, I was asked to introduce her as the keynote speaker at a media conference. I, of course, went overboard. It is not difficult to be hyperbolic about Haydee.

She wasn’t pleased. She told me half-jokingly that she thought I was beyond sycophancy. Ok, maybe I was sucking up to her. After all, I am a big Haydee fan. Her law firm was also giving us free legal advice. And let’s admit it, we all have an inner Joe de Venecia in all of us. I thought I had restrained mine better than most. But Haydee was too sharp to let it pass. She knew that words come easily to us, smooth talk even easier.

The moral of the story is: You can’t get one over Haydee. You don’t even try. Ask her former law students. Ask Danding Cojuangco. Ask Imee Marcos and Ali Dimaporo. Ask RAM and the MNLF and the NDF. They will tell you that Haydee had uncommon wisdom and uncommon sense. She had a razor-sharp intellect. She had a mind that was so clear because it was uncluttered by ambition or by lust for wealth or power. It was a mind that was free because it was not shackled to a personal, political or ideological agenda.

Journalists don’t see such clarity very often. She told EVEN US the painful truth. At that media conference, she quoted Camus, who was both a novelist and a journalist. The French writer famously said: “A free press can be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”

Without missing a beat, and flashing that famous glare, Haydee then proceeded to tell the journalists present there that thus far, in the Philippines, Camus’ promise, that a free press can be good remained largely in the realm of existential possibility rather than reality.

This is why Haydee will be so sorely missed. Everyone sucks up to the media in this country, but not her. And yet, even if she didn’t wine or dine journalists or schmooze with editors or columnists, she had an enviably good press. Every journalist I know had real, not just grudging, respect for her. We were all in awe of her. It makes me wonder: if we had more public officials like Haydee Yorac, men and women who appeal to our nobler, rather than baser, instincts, would we also not have a better press? Or for that matter, a better society?

In the last few days, Haydee’s many achievements have been recalled. I will not repeat them. We remember also her warmth, her humanity, her deep and abiding faith. We miss the glee with which she lapped up jokes. She had a keen sense of the absurd and the ridiculous. She was sensitive to the power of humor: not only is it a weapon of the weak against the strong, it also helps keep us sane despite the madness of the times.

Through those times, Haydee had an unerring sense of what is important. Her career in as a lawyer and as a public official focused on the most elemental things that make a democracy work: clean elections, justice, accountability.

As head of the National Unification Commission, she went around the country to probe the roots of conflict. She saw that it was not ideology, but the hunger and thirst for justice that drove rebellion. As a human rights lawyer during the Marcos era, Haydee had already realized that people did not need law, they needed justice. Peace, she said, could be obtained only through a social contract for a just, humane and equitable society. “The peaceful resolutions of armed conflict,” she said then, meant “neither blame nor surrender, but dignity for all.”

Truth. Justice. Dignity for all. These are big words. We avoid them now because these are complicated times and these words have been much abused. Besides, we are being told that there are other things that are more important: terrorism, the economy, political stability. With the budget deficit and rising oil prices, these are not times for waxing philosophical or existential.

Tonight, I will dare to speak big words in memory of Haydee Yorac. Her greatness lay in believing in the possibility of truth, justice and human dignity. Even in the most faithless times, Haydee believed. She believed that the greatness of the human spirit lies in the struggle against the forces that overwhelm it. As her favorite, Camus, said: “It isn’t happiness we should seek, but much more than that, a kind of greatness-in-despair.”

Haydee had that kind of greatness that stood out in times of despair. We sorely need it now. But now that she is gone, we have to find that greatness in our own selves. “In the depth of winter,” Camus wrote, “I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”

This is a winter as deep, as harsh as any. The best tribute we can pay to the great Filipina we are honoring tonight is to find the invincible Haydee within all of us.

(From Inside PCIJ)

Related posts:

1. Doing Justice for Haydee
2. Can They Pass the Glare of a Haydee Yorac?
3. The Nation’s Conscience has Risen to Heaven:
   A Tribute to Haydee Yorac

I have always believed that writing a piece about a person whom one deeply admires carries with it the risk as well as the fear that the finished product may not serve the subject any justice. But looking back at the life and times of this extraordinary woman, there probably isn�t a single piece of work that would give her any justice. But then again, to let the story of her career and crusades go untold would ironically be an unacceptable injustice.

The many battles of Haydee Yorac have been exactly just that, an often lonesome war against government inefficiency, dishonesty and corruption, and she has waged it on many fronts. Feisty, formidable, uncompromising, tough are only some of the words attached to her larger than life persona, but if we use the English dictionary I could only come up with two words that would serve Atty. Yorac right: public servant.

Service has been something I’ve never come to associate with government, self-service perhaps. For me the ultimate instrument for good had transformed into this monster on the verge to eat our country whole. Up until I knew she existed, the fight against the evils of government has always been for me, a battle being waged in vain. But Atty. Yorac, whose dogged resolve coupled with nerves of steel, has demonstrated that she’s not only fighting in battle, she’s actually winning it. In 2004, the Sandiganbayan gave the PCGG an astounding victory by awarding to the government billions of pesos worth of shares in United Coconut Planters Bank and San Miguel Corporation bought using the Coco levy funds. Previous to that, the PCGG had recovered some $684 million worth of Marcos’ Swiss bank deposits under her watch.

It’s safe to say once more that Filipinos have finally found a very likely defender in Haydee Yorac. On a more personal level, I’ve once again come across someone whom I could place all my hopes and optimism, the difference this time, is that I know she won’t let me down. I don’t even think she is capable. In all her years Haydee Yorac has always demanded honesty from everybody inasmuch as she demanded it on herself. Whether in public service or in private practice, Atty. Yorac always brought with her, as her Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service citation reads, an “exceptional integrity and rigor and her unwavering pursuit of the rule of law in the Philippines.”

Haydee’s mother had once said that she “always taught her children to do the right thing.” There is elegance in simplicity, and by those few words, Mrs. Yorac had, whether wittingly or unwittingly set the path for Atty. Yorac’s implacable crusade against deceit in any form. Whether training our future lawyers at the University of the Philippines or reforming our electoral system as Head of the Commission of Elections or recovering ill-gotten wealth as Chair of the Presidential Commission on Good Governance, the woman who once understatedly called herself “a good enough lawyer”, has unflinchingly and without fail, always done “the right thing.”

I’d give a million dollars in exchange for a memory of a time when I was genuinely proud of my leaders. I’ve come to a point where the repeated disappointments and disillusionment have become such a way of life that I am, simply put, jaded and numb. Yet Haydee Yorac has always sought to remind me that government is inherently noble and that those who run it recklessly should not be left alone to wreak their havoc but fought with unbridled obsession and steadfast commitment. Even from her sickbed, Atty. Yorac’s dedication to the cause of justice never wavered; on the contrary, cancer has only doubled her resolve. When this president appointed questionable individuals to the Board of the San Miguel Corporation, the perilously ailing Atty. Yorac was the first who rushed to condemn it.

Her decision to retire from the public sphere has once again put my confidence in government in serious jeopardy. In fact, the entire nation felt as if they had lost a best friend in government. And I cannot say with certainty if there will even be another Haydee Yorac. For now, I can only hold out hope and optimism, because that is what Atty. Yorac reignited in me. I owe it to her and every single public servant out there, who in spite of the temptations and lures of dishonesty and personal gain, continue in the noble and daunting task of trying to earn the public trust our government desperately seeks and providing for us Filipinos devoted service we legitimately deserve.

It would be presumptuous of me to assume that this piece has eloquently given Haydee Yorac her due. I am not even close. But here I am choosing to write this piece anyway. I never meant nor have I ever thought of this work as a masterpiece destined and built for longevity. No. Atty. Yorac would not want me to write about her because of the prize and the promise of prestige that comes with it but because, like her, I see that there is something truly monumental and valuable, needlessly to say an exhilarating sensation in not only expressing my convictions but more importantly in living them out.

Related posts:

1. The Nation’s Conscience has Risen to Heaven:
   A Tribute to Haydee Yorac
2. Can They Pass the Glare of a Haydee Yorac?
3. A Huge Loss to Small Coconut Farmers

Miss Yorac’s contributions go as far back as the 1960s, opposing the United States’ war on Vietnam and Ferdinand Marcos’ regime. With a seemingly inhuman endurance, she has galloped–Galahad-like–through four administrations as an activist, human rights commissioner, national election commissioner, teacher, chair of the National Unification Commission and–more recently–of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG). Just like the knight Galahad, Miss Yorac appears to have discovered the Holy Grail and transformed herself into a paladin of unearthly dimensions, striving at her utmost for righteousness and the punishment of the unjust.

As chairperson of the PCGG, Yorac disproved dissidents and strived to raise the standards of the commission (one must note in passing that there have been arguments among certain congressmen concerning the continued existence and usefulness of the commission prior to Yorac’s ascension as chair). She brought order to its barely catalogued files, awakened long slumbering cases, and pushed with all her strength at the barely living pace of various long-running legal battles. Under her watchful eye, the commission prevailed beyond all expectations and recovered over $600 million from the Swiss accounts of Ferdinand Marcos, and dealt a major blow in the dispute over the coco levy funds. What was perhaps even more amazing was the fact that she never lost any of her vigor even in sickbed, continuing to face challenges that would have fazed and confounded a normal person.

Though many more cases remain unsolved, Yorac’s involvement would have ensured that the PCGG would arrive at the eventual conclusion of its goal. However, this was not the case.

With Yorac’s resignation from the PCGG, one wonders if her replacement will have the capability to retain the commission’s force.

Many years before PCGG, Yorac was also Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner. For seven years, she patiently crafted for the commission an integrity it so greatly required. (Unfortunately, it only took less than a month and all the incompetence of the commission’s current head to erase the remnants of Miss Yorac’s loving touch.)

Outside government appointments, Miss Yorac was also a professor of law at the University of the Philippines. With the same patience, vigor, and sharp-eyed distinction, she molded the younger generations on what is just. She gave her all to impress on the young the importance of making a difference.

On her more personal side, it has been said by certain people that Miss Yorac also possessed a rather peculiar sense of humor. She has been described by fellow workers as being generous and kind; many have come to know her more as a loving mother than just any other boss who gives them their salary at the end of every month. She detested cynics, who believed that no good can come from any given person’s involvement with others.

The fact that very little–if any–airtime is used by the mainstream media for Miss Yorac’s death (as opposed to the millions of worthlessly disgusting drivel that is showbiz) is an affront to her memory. With all her contributions to fighting graft and progression of people’s rights, among other things, no sensible person would consider this a just treatment from an entity that–supposedly–also advocates service to the people.

And so the incorruptible Miss Yorac has passed away, and with her passes over twenty years of unfaltering service for the sake of the people. Would her legacy remain as nothing more than a faint echo in the memories of the coming generations? Let us all pray and believe as Haydee Yorac did: That no one person is merely indispensable; that everyone can make a difference–even with the tiniest seeming gesture.

Related posts:

1. Can They Pass the Glare of a Haydee Yorac?
2. Doing Justice for Haydee
3. A Huge Loss to Small Coconut Farmers