Lux-In-Domino Award
July 21, 2011-Ateneo Auditorium Diliman
“To be honest, fair, and good when these virtues reign is to be no more than ordinary. To be honest, fair, and good when falsehood, injustice, and evil reign, is to be most extraordinary.” Lorenzo R. Relova is just such a man.
Relova was born on January 20, 1916 to a well-off family in Pila, Laguna. He graduated from the Ateneo Grade School in 1929, from Ateneo High School (with honors) four years later, and obtained his Associate of Arts degree from Ateneo de Manila. He went on to study law and finished in 1939, among the first batch of graduates of the Ateneo Law School. Soon after the Second World War, Relova joined the government as a public prosecutor. Fiscal Relova’s efforts led to the successful prosecution of Communist Party leaders for rebellion and famously, despite intimidation and attempts at sabotage, a mayor’s bodyguard for shooting and killing a man. For his success the Justice Court Reporter’s Association named him City Fiscal of the Year in 1959.
Soon after making his mark as a fiscal, Relova’s judicial career began. In 1961 he was appointed to the Court of First Instance for Batangas City, to the Court of Appeals in 1975, and to the Supreme Court as the country’s first court administrator in 1979. He would also become the first member of the Judicial Bar Council, serving from 1989 to 1993.
His stint as Supreme Court justice started after a scandal: the November 1981 bar exams were marred by controversy when it was revealed that a justice had intervened to ensure that his son passed. To restore the court’s tarnished image, then-President Marcos asked the entire court to resign and proceeded to stock it with people known for their integrity, honesty, and unsullied reputation. Lorenzo Relova was among them.
Being associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1982 meant serving during the last years of the Marcos regime, a dark and perilous time in which the dictator controlled much of the government, including the judiciary. In this darkness Relova’s moral fortitude shone like a beacon. In the high-profile Galman v. Sandiganbayan case, involving the murder of Ninoy Aquino, Relova went against the majority and voted to admit the testimonies of the soldiers charged with the assassination of the late senator given before the Agrava Board. The findings of this investigative body as well as the groundswell of protest and defiance that swept the nation led to intense international pressure on the dictator to call snap elections. And when all signs pointed to a landslide victory for the martyred senator’s widow, Cory Aquino, the High Court was predictably besieged by cases attempting to nullify the special elections law.
Professor Melencio Sta. Maria of the Ateneo Law School says (as quoted by Cesar L. Villanueva in “Dedication to an Ideal” from the book To Give and Not to Count the Cost: Ateneans Inspiring Ateneans 1859–2009) the outcome was by no means secure. On the constitutionality of the special election law “the Supreme Court was deadlocked, split down the middle. It was up to Justice Relova to break the impasse. Many feared that being a recent Marcos appointee, he would be beholden to him. Justice Relova proved them wrong. . . . [H]e broke the impasse, voting according to his conscience.” What followed is now well-known: the elections, the widespread fraud, and the massive pouring forth of outrage into the streets that finally swept the dictator from office. “Our history, as we know it today,” Sta. Maria, observes, “was shaped in no small part by Relova’s character.”
His remarkable life of integrity played out not just on the national stage but in less public settings as well. The members of his family are quick to point out that among them he is well loved and respected, in large part because his integrity and moral probity extend to his private life. In his early years as a judge, someone delivered a crate of lanzones to the house. The delighted members of the household ate it up, but when Relova discovered the gift, who it had come from, and that it had been consumed, he insisted that it be replaced. When a bus company offered him a pass, he refused, not wanting to be indebted to it. His solicitude even extended to the househelp; he made sure the driver had eaten well before leaving on trips and instructed the children not to wake the helpers when they came home late at night.
His adherence to principle was leavened by affection. Once, he tearfully commended a grandson for an award that brought honor to the family; he reminds his kin to always thank anyone who does them a kindness, big or small; and he never wants to be out of the company of his wife, Conchita. With her he has been married more than seventy years, has gone to mass every day as long as his strength allowed, and has prayed the rosary constantly.
Not only judge and family man, Relova was also a teacher for many years. He gave forty-five years of his life sharing his knowledge and insight with his students at the Ateneo Law School, many of whom went on to become top-flight lawyers in positions of influence, professors and administrators of the school, and leading officials in all three branches of government.
But intelligence and expertise were not the only things he was known for. Students and colleagues at the law school also saw him live a life of humble dedication. In his chapter on Relova in To Give and Not to Count the Cost, Law School Dean Cesar Villanueva writes that students were “fascinated to see that each afternoon after five o’clock, Justice Relova would descend from a public bus coming from the Supreme Court to meet his classes in Salcedo Village, Makati.” It was no surprise to Villanueva; taking public transport was consistent with a man who “went about his work with such dignified humility.”
Those who have worked with him have nothing but the highest praise. To Professor JV Chan-Gonzaga (as quoted by Villanueva), Relova is “a lawyer, teacher, and jurist, who joined the countless other men of dedication and distinction in forging generations of Ateneo lawyers by the fires of the Jesuit tradition in academic excellence and the nobility of a genuine passion for justice.” He will be remembered by “a long, distinguished line of Ateneans.”
Dean Villanueva sums up Relova’s life thus: his many years in the government, which culminated in his term in the Supreme Court, shows Relova’s “total commitment” to public service; his four and a half decades of teaching at the Law School reveal his “passion for the law”; and his “commitment to integrity” is attested to by his “daily life lived in simply humility and devotion to God, family, and others.”
Joaquin Bernas, SJ, dean emeritus of the Law School, considers Relova “one shining example” of the school’s faculty members who are “distinguished not only for their knowledge of the law but also for impeccable integrity” (as quoted by Villanueva). Though he has retired (in 2002), “the imprint of his influence in the school is permanent. He will always be remembered as a distinguished embodiment of the Ateneo Law School Ideal.”
Family man, educator, lawyer, public servant: these are some of the roles Lorenzo R. Relova has played in his many years, roles to which he brought his intelligence, integrity, humility, devotion, and faith. His life of virtue has been a great light to us in our dark hours, a beacon that inspires and will continue to inspire generations of Ateneans.
For having been a paragon of integrity during his career in the Philippine judiciary, especially as Supreme Court justice during the turbulent years of the Marcos administration; for having dedicated over forty years of distinguished service to the Ateneo Law School; and for living an honest, fair, and good life when it was a rare man who did so; the Ateneo de Manila University proudly and gratefully confers its Lux-in-Domino Award on Lorenzo R. Relova.
July 21, 2011-Ateneo Auditorium Diliman
“To be honest, fair, and good when these virtues reign is to be no more than ordinary. To be honest, fair, and good when falsehood, injustice, and evil reign, is to be most extraordinary.” Lorenzo R. Relova is just such a man.
Relova was born on January 20, 1916 to a well-off family in Pila, Laguna. He graduated from the Ateneo Grade School in 1929, from Ateneo High School (with honors) four years later, and obtained his Associate of Arts degree from Ateneo de Manila. He went on to study law and finished in 1939, among the first batch of graduates of the Ateneo Law School. Soon after the Second World War, Relova joined the government as a public prosecutor. Fiscal Relova’s efforts led to the successful prosecution of Communist Party leaders for rebellion and famously, despite intimidation and attempts at sabotage, a mayor’s bodyguard for shooting and killing a man. For his success the Justice Court Reporter’s Association named him City Fiscal of the Year in 1959.Soon after making his mark as a fiscal, Relova’s judicial career began. In 1961 he was appointed to the Court of First Instance for Batangas City, to the Court of Appeals in 1975, and to the Supreme Court as the country’s first court administrator in 1979. He would also become the first member of the Judicial Bar Council, serving from 1989 to 1993.
His stint as Supreme Court justice started after a scandal: the November 1981 bar exams were marred by controversy when it was revealed that a justice had intervened to ensure that his son passed. To restore the court’s tarnished image, then-President Marcos asked the entire court to resign and proceeded to stock it with people known for their integrity, honesty, and unsullied reputation. Lorenzo Relova was among them.
Being associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1982 meant serving during the last years of the Marcos regime, a dark and perilous time in which the dictator controlled much of the government, including the judiciary. In this darkness Relova’s moral fortitude shone like a beacon. In the high-profile Galman v. Sandiganbayan case, involving the murder of Ninoy Aquino, Relova went against the majority and voted to admit the testimonies of the soldiers charged with the assassination of the late senator given before the Agrava Board. The findings of this investigative body as well as the groundswell of protest and defiance that swept the nation led to intense international pressure on the dictator to call snap elections. And when all signs pointed to a landslide victory for the martyred senator’s widow, Cory Aquino, the High Court was predictably besieged by cases attempting to nullify the special elections law.
Professor Melencio Sta. Maria of the Ateneo Law School says (as quoted by Cesar L. Villanueva in “Dedication to an Ideal” from the book To Give and Not to Count the Cost: Ateneans Inspiring Ateneans 1859–2009) the outcome was by no means secure. On the constitutionality of the special election law “the Supreme Court was deadlocked, split down the middle. It was up to Justice Relova to break the impasse. Many feared that being a recent Marcos appointee, he would be beholden to him. Justice Relova proved them wrong. . . . [H]e broke the impasse, voting according to his conscience.” What followed is now well-known: the elections, the widespread fraud, and the massive pouring forth of outrage into the streets that finally swept the dictator from office. “Our history, as we know it today,” Sta. Maria, observes, “was shaped in no small part by Relova’s character.”
His remarkable life of integrity played out not just on the national stage but in less public settings as well. The members of his family are quick to point out that among them he is well loved and respected, in large part because his integrity and moral probity extend to his private life. In his early years as a judge, someone delivered a crate of lanzones to the house. The delighted members of the household ate it up, but when Relova discovered the gift, who it had come from, and that it had been consumed, he insisted that it be replaced. When a bus company offered him a pass, he refused, not wanting to be indebted to it. His solicitude even extended to the househelp; he made sure the driver had eaten well before leaving on trips and instructed the children not to wake the helpers when they came home late at night.
His adherence to principle was leavened by affection. Once, he tearfully commended a grandson for an award that brought honor to the family; he reminds his kin to always thank anyone who does them a kindness, big or small; and he never wants to be out of the company of his wife, Conchita. With her he has been married more than seventy years, has gone to mass every day as long as his strength allowed, and has prayed the rosary constantly.
Not only judge and family man, Relova was also a teacher for many years. He gave forty-five years of his life sharing his knowledge and insight with his students at the Ateneo Law School, many of whom went on to become top-flight lawyers in positions of influence, professors and administrators of the school, and leading officials in all three branches of government.
But intelligence and expertise were not the only things he was known for. Students and colleagues at the law school also saw him live a life of humble dedication. In his chapter on Relova in To Give and Not to Count the Cost, Law School Dean Cesar Villanueva writes that students were “fascinated to see that each afternoon after five o’clock, Justice Relova would descend from a public bus coming from the Supreme Court to meet his classes in Salcedo Village, Makati.” It was no surprise to Villanueva; taking public transport was consistent with a man who “went about his work with such dignified humility.”
Those who have worked with him have nothing but the highest praise. To Professor JV Chan-Gonzaga (as quoted by Villanueva), Relova is “a lawyer, teacher, and jurist, who joined the countless other men of dedication and distinction in forging generations of Ateneo lawyers by the fires of the Jesuit tradition in academic excellence and the nobility of a genuine passion for justice.” He will be remembered by “a long, distinguished line of Ateneans.”
Dean Villanueva sums up Relova’s life thus: his many years in the government, which culminated in his term in the Supreme Court, shows Relova’s “total commitment” to public service; his four and a half decades of teaching at the Law School reveal his “passion for the law”; and his “commitment to integrity” is attested to by his “daily life lived in simply humility and devotion to God, family, and others.”
Joaquin Bernas, SJ, dean emeritus of the Law School, considers Relova “one shining example” of the school’s faculty members who are “distinguished not only for their knowledge of the law but also for impeccable integrity” (as quoted by Villanueva). Though he has retired (in 2002), “the imprint of his influence in the school is permanent. He will always be remembered as a distinguished embodiment of the Ateneo Law School Ideal.”
Family man, educator, lawyer, public servant: these are some of the roles Lorenzo R. Relova has played in his many years, roles to which he brought his intelligence, integrity, humility, devotion, and faith. His life of virtue has been a great light to us in our dark hours, a beacon that inspires and will continue to inspire generations of Ateneans.
For having been a paragon of integrity during his career in the Philippine judiciary, especially as Supreme Court justice during the turbulent years of the Marcos administration; for having dedicated over forty years of distinguished service to the Ateneo Law School; and for living an honest, fair, and good life when it was a rare man who did so; the Ateneo de Manila University proudly and gratefully confers its Lux-in-Domino Award on Lorenzo R. Relova.
