IT is hard to speak of someone like Justice Cecilia Muñoz Palma, "Tita Celing" to most of us in the opposition during the Marcos regime, without running the risk of repeating all the great things that have been said of this great person and jurist.

But I am taking up the challenge because, as I told Tita Celing’s son Tadeo when he invited men to speak at her eulogy, the great things said of his mother can never be enough to capture what she truly represented in the life of the Filipino people.

If you noticed from the wide range of testimonials, all unsolicited, about the life of Justice Palma, she was many things to many people. Chief Justice Art Panganiban kept repeating her uncanny closeness to Saint Therese of Lisieux (or Therese of the Child Jesus, or Therese of the Holy Face), noting how her parents had dedicated, or entrusted her, as a child, to Saint Therese. He thought there was more than just coincidence that she died on the death anniversary of one of the Catholic world’s greatest saints.

Most of the other testimonials about Justice Palma touched on her brilliance but also, and more important, her unassailable integrity, which allowed her to apply her lifelong study and understanding of the law to every important question of our time without her motive being doubted. When Martial Law came under legal scrutiny, she did not mince words, in criticizing the President who appointed her, and said that Martial Law had destroyed the rule of law in the country; and that the only way to repair the damage was to lift it immediately. The "ingrata" tag was brushed aside by most.

On hindsight, one can only think: If only Marcos followed her advice, he would probably have come out a good leader.

In the same way, one might add, looking at her other preferred pieces of legal advice and wisdom, that maybe, if our leaders had followed the advice of Tita Celing based on her correct and principled thinking, we won’t be in the political situation we are in right now – still struggling, 20 years after democracy’s restoration, to find out how to make it work.

Few people may recall, but besides her advice for the immediate lifting of Martial Law, Tita Celing gave another piece of advice to another president, this time Mrs. Cory Aquino. After Edsa I, she said it might not be a good idea to abolish the Batasan in order to more quickly restore political normalcy. As you know, that advice got lost in the frenzied effort to clean up the government in 1986 and the result is that 20 years after, we are still adjusting to the shift back to the presidential system.

In 2001, she gave the same kind of candid, unsolicited interpretation of the legal dilemmas that faced all parties at the height of Edsa 2, volunteering her view about how the country may avoid the consequences in the future of having stepped out of the constitutional ambit in order to deal with the unique situation then prevailing, in January 2001.

Those of us who knew her up close in the Batasang Pambansa of 1984, where we were among the few in the opposition ranks that used that avenue to fight the last vestiges of a dictatorship, were not surprised that she could consistently stand up for her ideas and convictions in whatever clime.

She was simply, even as Tita Celing, the most honest and bravest person we knew. Whatever brilliance, talent and integrity she lent to the court as associate justice of the Supreme Court and before that, in the many roles she played in the judiciary, Tita Celing would bring with her always – to the halls of the Batasan, to the Constitutional Commission of 1986 where she capably steered a gathering of some of the nation’s finest, but also – and this is where one appreciates her leadership – the most articulate and headstrong individuals.

Later in life, she would bring that same sense of vision for the greater good, that same passion to serve in the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) during the Estrada administration.

I feel blessed at having been thrown into her distinguished company in the Batasang Pambansa, in what is unarguably the most challenging era of Philippine politics. There we saw her in her element, no longer wearing the aweinspiring robe of a magistrate, but still cloaked in some invisible mantle of leadership, scholarship and courage.

It is understandable that all of the initial eulogies and reams of writing about her highlighted the many ways she has been "first" in public life foremost of which was as first woman Justice of the Supreme Court.

But I think Tita Celing, looking down upon us today from her enviable space in the Creator’s embrace, would appreciate better if we go back to her roots, her essential self, and from there trace the greatness and leadership that marked her entire public life.

I think Justice Palma was, as one editorial put it, "first" in the ways that truly mattered because she was a servant leader in every way. Her greatness sprang from her intuitive ability to apply knowledge and talent to every way possible to serve the people. In the end, one is tempted to go back, indeed, to her close and lifelong embrace of Saint Therese of Lisieux, who like her had wisdom that persuaded even the most erudite of church scholars and theologians, but always chose to do the simplest work of service.

Tita Celing loved her family – her late husband Dean Rod Palma, her children and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren – but her heart was so big it could enfold as well the Filipino people.

That she enshrined "love’’ in the preamble of the 1987 Constitution is no product of whimsy. She had found the seamless way of combining love, the fountainhead of all virtue, along with her God-given talent, and consistently albeit quietly applied that unbeatable mixture to public service. Therein, I think, lies her greatness. And recognizing that can only deepen our sense of loss, because it is hard to conceive of anyone coming into the scene soon, who can muster that same combination.