A warm welcome to all of you.

Many superlatives have been, and still will be, accorded Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, but none, I believe, will ever render her the justice she deserves, considering that they are mere attempts in imperfect human language to approximate the distinct class of persona and justicia that she really is.

I am greatly pleased to be assigned by my brethren in the high court to deliver the opening remarks — to set the tone, so to speak — at the retirement ceremony of my provincemate from Batangas. Had I not been so tasked, I would have probably sought this signal honor, for such is the immeasurable esteem and utmost regard that I hold for this colleague of ours.

It would be almost impossible to talk about Justice Gutierrez without mentioning her deep and infectious pride in being a Batangueña and all that it means to her – a fierce loyalty to friends, a strong sense of gratitude, an unshakeable word of honor, or even such commonplace, everyday things like karneng Batangas, sumang alitagtag or kapeng barako. The former members of the Third Division and now, the present members of the First, never tired of hearing her stories about Alitagtag and what it was like when she was growing up. We loved her humorous vignettes about the habits and practices of the people in her hometown. We adored her simplicity of heart as she shared with us the joys of her youth. Of course, I have to tell you too about the temper and the "a la e" that invariably came on every time her blood pressure rose during a heated discussion. As one of our colleagues jestingly said: Galit na si Helen. Lumalabas na ang pagkaBatangueña.

In the nearly six years that I have worked with Justice Gutierrez, I, as her junior, sat (in a manner of speaking) like a pupil at her feet, absorbing the mature wisdom she had gained throughout her long years of faithful service to our country. She was my mentor who taught me many things about the inner workings of the Court. I was lucky to have her as my working chairperson as she was very detailed, meticulous and organized in handling our cases. The years clearly have not blunted the sharpness of her memory nor slowed down her capacity for work.

The famous writer G.K. Chesterton had a very apt description of persons like Justice Gutierrez. He wrote that they had the unusual ability to see "the greatness of small things and the smallness of great things." If greatness can be measured by the ability to hurdle remarkable challenges, not for one’s self but for a larger cause, then indeed there is greatness in her. And, let me hasten to add, the concomitant humility of one who has never claimed honor for her own sake.

Her first love was and remains to be music, but her last, true and destined love is the law. Ensconced in between were her late husband Diego who served the country honorably as NBI Assistant Director and three accomplished lawyer-children.

As I was mulling over my opening remarks for this afternoon, I recalled my father’s thoughtful admonition to me, expressed in a handwritten letter he wrote me on the day I took my oath as a lawyer 33 years ago before the Supreme Court en banc. He told me:

"Seek to be wealthy rather than rich, for it is possible for one to have everything and yet have nothing."

In this regard, I can truthfully say that Justice Gutierrez is wealthy in the fullest sense of the word, although her relative impoverishment in public office served with honor might somewhat be alleviated by her modest retirement benefits the exact amount of which, by the way, she refuses to divulge.

But in Justice Gutierrez, there is more to the marriage of Euterpe (the muse of music) and Solon (the Athenian lawgiver). And the penetrating light and brilliant radiance of her ponencias in several landmark cases were, in the beautiful and rhapsodic prose of Lord Byron, "as clear and lucid as the fabled skies of Greece."

Music and law are kindred arts in that both bend towards the same end — harmonizing and harmonious tension rather than disconcerting and discordant stress. Life, when it is balanced and not askew, is all about positive tension and not about negative stress.

Just as the contrasting strings of the piano can evoke the most exhilirating of feelings, so too can the written word in the law produce the most enlightening amplification of all sides of an issue where there was only disagreement or confusion before. All this is achieved through the contrasting views expressed in majority and minority opinions, of concurrence and dissent, and even by way of both concurrence and dissent in one single opinion.

To use Plato’s allegory of the cave, law opens up the way for us to emerge, even if only by painful stages, from the cave of dim and constantly shifting shadows into the steady sunlight of truth and justice.

Under the enlightening and steadfast leadership of our Chief Justice, the Honorable Reynato S. Puno, himself no less a supernova* in the judicial constellation, Justice Gutierrez, the social conscience of the Court, has been an olympic torchbearer and a leading light to guide our people, without partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, through the labyrinth of often conflicting perceptions of facts and the maze of intricate and confounding legal issues, given the larger canvas of the life of our nation and the welfare of our people.

With Justice Gutierrez’s luminous ponencias, the Supreme Court, not unlike Theseus, has threaded our beloved country many times past the dreadful Minotaur of Pan-like irrationality, raw Dionysian passion, and the Scylla and Charybdis of senseless partisanship and nihilistic chaos. All the fifteen members of this Court, as one collegial body, can no more betray our country and our countrymen than we can betray our own destiny.

Justice Gutierrez, Helen, if I may affectionately address you by your nickname today, your retirement reminds us all of the seasons of our lives. 70 is just a number. In truth, however, it speaks less of winter and more of autumn, whose varied and vibrant colors are reminders of summer’s fullness of life and, beyond winter’s impending snow, of the prospect of spring not too far beyond.

If you have much to look back to with a deep sense of personal and professional satisfaction over your many achievements only a few people have been privileged to attain, you can, with great and eager expectation, look forward to a future in which, by God’s favor, the best is yet to come. This is reserved by Divine Providence for those who have been tested mightily and proven themselves worthy of and faithful to their calling and the sacred trust reposed in them. The best has been reserved for you.

One Andalusian poet once wrote tersely: "After the dreaming and the living comes the awakening."

Indeed, your awakening is to the fact that, as a Justice of our supreme tribunal, you have lived your life in full measure with the character of Plato’s "philosopher-king." In the classical sense, the "philosopherking" was one who in his lifetime was good and just, fair and honest, true to his God, country and people and, above all, to his conscience, who understood what was right and did what was right without question or equivocation.

Justice Gutierrez, Helen, you have consistently manifested in your life and judicial career a fine mind and an even finer soul. Your 14 colleagues join a grateful nation in saluting you.

Hail, and fare thee well.