THE RIGHT THING
Written by the Daughter of CJ Sereno
I was–I guess you’d call it my mother’s informal assistant-on-call for many years, but before that I was her student. She taught me to read and write in two languages at once; she took me through my multiplication tables, sitting patiently with me and a whole stack of coloured flashcards; she taught me how to draw, going through countless fairies and knights and dragons and enchanted forests, and she taught me how to paint. The first oil paintings I ever did hang on the wall of my parents’ dining room. I was five when I painted them.
I learned history at my mother’s knee, as well as political science; that is to say, even at a very young age I already knew the importance of the structures that underpin our government, the system of checks and balances, the will of the people. It may sound strange to some, but for me it was entirely normal for a family to be discussing the role of the Constitution at the dinner table. My mother’s regard for the rule of law, for the foundational importance of the Constitution as the articulated will of the Filipino people, was so fundamental to her that she couldn’t help but pass it on to her children.
I also learned ethics and philosophy from my mother. She deeply enjoyed her philosophy classes at the Ateneo, so she made sure my brother and I had a good grounding in the classics. I remember–I must have been eight or nine at the time–coming home from the Manila Book Fair with a car’s trunkload worth of books, including The Book of Virtues and its companion The Moral Compass, cultural dictionaries, an entire encyclopedia set of Philippine history, the Philippine Almanac. “It’s very important that you learn all this, anak,” she told me, “but make sure you read these first.” And she handed me the Book of Virtues and The Moral Compass.
It was always very clear with my mother what came first. What was most important. You needed a wide range of knowledge, to be sure; you needed a richly varied skill-set, rooted in literature and art and history and philosophy and science. But above all you needed to know what was right.
—
When I say “assistant-on-call” what I really want to say is a sort of hybrid collaborator/editor/confidant/discussant, except language doesn’t have a single word for what I was to my mother save for that most vague and most precise of things, “daughter”. Thinking about it, it’s kind of funny now how my mother completely ignored categories when it came to working with and teaching me. Who is to say you shouldn’t be discussing the complex legacies of colonialism with your ten-year old? If you can explain things to her, why not? It is not that I was that good a student; it is just that my mother was that brilliant a teacher.
(She’s still teaching even now. Only now her classroom has expanded to encompass the whole country.)
I have had the privilege of reading as much of my mother’s writing as I could possibly understand, and one thing that unifies her body of work is this: the clarity of her thought. Even her academic writing has that crystalline quality of something that is absolutely certain of its nature and its purpose: all sharply defined edges and transparency. She has always known what it is she wants to say, because she has always made sure that, to the full extent of her abilities, it is the right thing to say.
I think that this clarity comes through with particular strength in my mother’s judicial opinions. Such clarity was possible only because she knows the law so completely; because she holds the Constitution paramount as the will of the people; because she is unafraid. And it’s that lack of fear that’s been so vital. Again and again–where others have doubted or wavered; where political pressures made every path a dangerous one to tread–she has brushed considerations of safety or comfort or political expediency aside. What does it matter, if she makes a powerful political enemy? If she goes against the majority? If there’s an easier, less costly way of compromise?
These aren’t even considerations, to my mother. The only question to be asked is: what is the right thing to do?
—
My mother and I talk about normal mother-daughter things, for the most part: am I eating enough, what have I cooked lately, how is my garden going, how are my pets, what level have I recently finished in the mobile game we both play. We don’t often talk about politics or the battle she is currently fighting. What’s the point? I know what she will say.
A few times, when my worry got the better of me, she has said: “We have to do this, anak. We have to do what is right.”
And of course, that’s true. It really is that simple.
The choices are clear. It’s paying the consequences that is often difficult, painful. Costly. I’ve seen it, again and again, in my mother’s life.
She’s paid the cost every single time, her eyes bright, her heart light. She is happy to bear the consequences. She knows that it’s fine. She has done the right thing. And that is all that matters.
—
Words can’t express how proud I am of my mother, so I’m not even going to try. But you know, they say showing is more effective than telling, so I’ll just share with you some of my mother’s words–words that had me grinning and nodding as I read them, because this is the woman I have known all my life: her clear-cut courage, her mind like an arrow unerringly pointing at the truth.
When my mother was asked if there were any attempts to get her to discuss her differences with the President, this is what she said:
“Napakahalaga sa akin ay matingnan ko sa sa mata ang bawat huwes at sabihing tumayo ka. Kahit sino pang makapangyarihan ang tumawag sa iyo, manindigan ka sa iyong paniniwalang tama. At huwag na huwag kang papatakot. Kung ako po ay nakipag-usap, nag-kompromise, nawala na po ang ganoong kakayahan ko…. Hindi ako nag-kompromiso, nanindigan ako sa tama.”
[A rough translation, for my non-Tagalog speaker friends: “It’s very important to me that I can look every judge in the eye and tell them, ‘Stand. No matter which powerful person calls you, stand by what you believe is right. And do not ever allow yourself to be cowed.’ If I had entered into these discussions, if I had compromised, I would have lost that ability… I have not compromised, I have stood by what is right.”]
An ocean away, I read my mother’s words and continue to learn from her. I am still my mother’s student, like many of those who have studied law under her. This time I am learning incredibly profound lessons: how to stand when you are under crushing pressure, beset on all sides by forces much more powerful than you. The immeasurable strength you have when you are standing on the truth, held in the palm of God’s hand.
These are the kinds of lessons that have changed the course of history. They are simple because they need nothing other than the truth.
I’m learning. And I will continue to act on these lessons; will continue to write and work and live based on this foundation: the question and its answer, ringing clear down to my soul–
What must I do?
The right thing.
