Yorac, 64

Posted by Luz Rimban 
PCIJ

VETERAN activist and human rights lawyer Haydee Yorac passed away at 6:30 this morning (Manila time) in Chicago. She had been suffering from uterine cancer and sustained a mild stroke in 2003. She was 64 years old.

Yorac's passing is an immeasurable loss to the nation. She was both fearsome and fearless, devoting most of her life to fighting the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos and to upholding citizens' constitutional freedoms. Since the restoration of democracy in 1986, Philippine presidents recognized Yorac's brilliant legal mind and tapped her to serve in various capacities.

Shortly after Edsa 1, Yorac was appointed Commissioner of the Commission on Elections where she served for seven years. Yorac's years in the Comelec were considered the golden age of the poll body. The Comelec has since fallen into disrepute, sinking to its lowest point with the revelation of the "Hello, Garci" tapes in which a Comelec Commissioner was heard getting orders from President Gloria Arroyo allegedly to fix election results.

Yorac also served as Chair of the National Unification Commission during the term of former President Fidel Ramos.  As NUC chair, Yorac dealt with various armed groups in the effort get them to sit and discuss ways of resolving the festering rebellion and insurgency in the country.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to run for the Philippine Senate in 1998, Yorac devoted her time to private practice as partner in the Yorac Azcuna Sarmiento Arroyo and Chua law offices.

In 2001, Yorac was named Chairperson of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), the first government agency formed in 1986 by former President Corazon Aquino. Its mission was to recover the ill-gotten of the Marcos family. It was during Yorac's term that the PCGG was able to recover $683 million in Marcos assets hidden in Swiss banks.

For her accomplishments, Yorac was given the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, for Government Service in 2004. In giving her the award, the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation recognized her "building confidence in government through service of exceptional integrity and rigor and her unwavering pursuit of the rule of law in the Philippines."

A political prisoner during the martial law years, Yorac's was known as "outspoken and incorruptible," traits that the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation also recognized in naming her one of its awardees.  

"Our values and personal convictions dictate the direction that we take and the stand that we make on moral issues that affect our work, in particular, and the country, in general. The desire to make government more effective and efficient in its mandate of good governance is of paramount importance. It is the driving force that compels many of us to accept responsibilities in government, despite the odds," Yorac said when she accepted the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Her failing health forced her quit the PCGG in April this year, although there were also reports she had been pressured by Malacañang into resigning.

Yorac graduated from the University of the Philippines College of Law in 1962 and obtained her Master of Laws degree from Yale University in 1981.  She has trained generations of the country's best lawyers, having been a law professor at UP for decades.