It’s not often that we are privileged to have in our midst in our time an authentic heroine, admired not only here but also abroad. So extraordinary is our icon that if she were born in another country, she would still be looked up to as a heroine. One reason is that she is not one of the common mold: She combined courage and superior inelligence.

You have known how this frail-looking woman had defied the most powerful and dangerous dictatorship of our time at a time when it was dangerous to do so; how she was about the first woman to top the bar examinations, how she opened the doors of the department of justice to the women, as the first woman prosecutor, and finally how she opened the portals of the court of the land, the Supreme Court, for all women lawyers, as the first to be appointed there.

Thus, I suppose the major message and the whole purpose of all the necrological speeches made for her in the past few days is to make sure that she continue to live amidst us beyond her grave, an inspiration and model for our generation and the generations after us. For her, I think, that would be the happiest tribute.

It would not be telling the whole truth to say that everybody admires her and is in agreement with her ideas. There are those including intellectuals of unclear thinking, who are critical of the present Constitution, a handiwork of the Constitution Commission of 1986 of which she was the head.

They say it’s defective, therefore it has to be changed. It’s flawed because it has been crafted by commissioners who were appointees, not elected by the people. The easiest way to dismiss their arguments is mention the names of some of the 47 Commisioners: Among them, luminaries as former Chief Justice Roberto Concepcion, one of the brightest in our history of the judiciary, retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide, the late former Senator and legal authority Ambrosio Padilla, Senator Francisco Soc Rodrigo, Senator Lorenzo Sumulong, Ateneo Law Dean Joaquin Bernas, Ex-Comelec Chairman Christian Monsod, retired Supreme Court Justice Florenz Regalado, Supreme Court Justice Adolf Azcuna, Blas Ople, and others, of the 47-member Con-Com. One wonders if there had ever been a public office or commission superior to the 1986 Con-Com in intelligence and integrity.

What the critics could not understand is that a Constitution is not chiseled into granite. The better ones are those relevant to the problems of the times in which they are written and are revised when new realities take over. The 1987 Constitution addressed martial law problems. Most constitutions are indeed or changed after four years or so, like the Recto Constitution of 1935, revised in 1940. The 1987 Charter is already 18 years old, the most enduring of all Philippine Constitutions.

The 1986 Con-Com, composed mostly of legal giants, elected Celing Palma president of that body, contrary to the notion that she was an appointive head.

So unshakeable was the commissioners’ conviction that she deserved to be president of the body, a powerful lobby to put up another big name as candidate by a very powerful group outside of the Commission fizzled out before the voting. No surprise, she dominated that high body although she ruled with an even hand.

It’s fashionable to look at the country and pronounce it hopeless. But as long as we have leaders like Celing Muñoz Palma whose legacy continues to be venerated by the people the country will be all right and will survive a long time.