2009, November 22. Justice Cecilia Munoz Palma
First Woman Supreme Court Associate Justice
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CECILIA MUNOZ-PALMA. (November 22, 1913 - January 2, 2006). A Filipino jurist and the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of the Philippines. She was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ferdinand Marcos on October 29, 1973, and served until she reached the then-mandatory retirement age of 65.
The daughter of a congressman from Batangas, Muñoz-Palma earned her law degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law, and a Master of Laws degree from Yale University. She became the first woman prosecutor of Quezon City in 1947. Seven years later, she became the first female district judge when she was named a trial court judge for Negros Oriental. In the next few years, she was assigned as a judge to Laguna and Rizal provinces until her appointment to the Court of Appeals in 1968, the second woman ever to be appointed to the appellate court. In 1973, she again made history, this time as the first female Supreme Court Associate Justice, preceding by eight years Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
After Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency in 1986, she created the 1986 Constitutional Commission to draft the new Constitution and appointed Muñoz-Palma as one of its members. The Commission would later elect her as its President.
Following the ratification of the 1987 Constitution, Muñoz-Palma faded from the public eye. However, in 1998, she supported Joseph Estrada for the presidency. After his election, President Estrada appointed the 85-year old Muñoz-Palma as Chairperson of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. She served in this capacity until 2000. Muñoz-Palma strongly denounced the circumstances that led to Estrada's vacation of the presidency and the assumption into office of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Muñoz-Palma died on January 2, 2006, at the age of 92. Three years later, the International Women’s Forum inducted her into its International Hall of Fame. The Justice Cecilia Muñoz Palma Foundation was formed by her family and friends to “continue what she started”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Mu%C3%B1oz-Palma
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