Marcelo B. Fernan

Marcelo Briones Fernan was born in Cebu on the 25th of October, 1927. Known fondly as “Celing”, he was the second of five children raised by Wenceslao and Margarita Fernan.

Having left their ancestral roots in Bogo, the Fernan family settled in a house on General Sepulveda Street, Cebu City with each of the children receiving a high-standard American education at the Cebu Normal School. Celing himself proved to be very gregarious and sociable at an early age, which his only sister Alejandrina believes may have been the first sign of his political disposition.

When the war broke out in Cebu, the Fernan family was forced to flee the Japanese attacks on the city, and hid between the hacienda owned by their grandmother, Emiliana Briones, and the island of Leyte. Because of their age, none of the children were called to military service. However, the struggle to live in a remote area required them to perform work, whether that involved trading or setting up stores to sell crafts. Following the liberation of Cebu, the family returned to their home in Sepulveda to find it largely damaged and in need of repair.

After the end of the war, Celing continued his education and graduated with high honors from Abellana High School as it was the first school to open following the Liberation of Cebu

Among his siblings, Celing was the only one who held aspirations to pursue a career in law, inspired both by his father, called “Mano Bences” in his native Bogo, where he worked as a deputy provincial fiscal and lawyer before serving as a judge in the Court of First Instance in Davao and Iloilo; and also his uncle, Manuel C. Briones, who would join the Senate in 1951. Celing moved to Manila to take his bachelor of laws at the University of the Philippines, after which he was admitted to the Philippine Bar on July 16, 1953.

His excellent academic performance at U.P. earned his admittance for an additional year of study in the master’s program of the prestigious Harvard Law School. The knowledge and skills he gleaned from his education became the foundation for a steady living back in Cebu, as he began teaching in Colegio de San Jose—Recoletos and took over his father’s law practice, whose offices were located in the BPI Building at the corner of Magallanes and P. Burgos Street.

Upon returning to the Philippines, Celing was introduced to Eloisa Nolasco, whose father, Ramon Nolasco, was likewise a judge. Celing and Elo engaged in a whirlwind courtship that extended throughout the rest of their lives, as they married on May 21, 1955. The following year, they celebrated the birth of their first child, Maria Eloisa, and continued to welcome eight more children—Maria Margarita, Maria Aurora, Maria Emiliana, Marcelo Jr., Maria Milagros, Maria Ramona, Michael, and Manuel—into their lives over the years.

Celing spent his early career climbing into politics. In 1959, he was elected to the Cebu City Planning Board. In just three years, he successfully joined the Cebu Provincial Board.

Over the years, he had earned enough support and confidence to represent the second district of Cebu in the Constitutional Convention of 1970. As a member of the Constitutional Convention, Celing was under enormous pressure to preserve the civil liberties afforded to the people by democracy. In September 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law, and ordered the arrest of several members of the Convention who were vocal opponents of Marcos’ agenda.

Though not detained, Celing remained steadfast to refuse the temptation to sell out, as many of his colleagues had appeared to do. He became one of the sixteen delegates to vote “No” on the charter, which passed on 237 votes of approval. The Marcos Constitution would eventually be upheld, but constantly questioned before the Supreme Court in ratification hearings. Celing did not take the passage of the new constitution as a sign of defeat. He continued his work in law throughout the first years of the Marcos regime, and became president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines in 1977.

In the 1984 elections, he joined opposition party, United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO), to secure a seat in the unicameral parliament known as the Regular Batasang Pambansa.

As a skeptical member of the minority opposition, Celing singlehandedly represented the anti-Marcos sentiment from Cebu. With the snap elections in 1986, the subsequent report that the results had been tampered, and the People Power Revolution that erupted in its wake, President Marcos was forced to leave his office and the country, effectively driving the nation’s legislators to once again re-draft the Constitution and re-build the country with Corazon Aquino as the Philippines’ new president.

Though he did not participate in the Constitutional Commission of 1986, Celing was appointed to the Aquino Supreme Court as an associate justice by the newly installed Aquino on April 8 of that year.

In 1988, he was appointed to the highest post of the judiciary, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, and the Fernan Court quickly garnered a reputation for maintaining an objective integrity that was not swayed by favor or influence from other members of government or by a sense of loyalty to the Aquino administration. Part of the reforms introduced by the Fernan Court included the judicial orientation and career enrichment program, an update of the Code of the Judicial Conduct, and the continuous trial program, still appreciated today by the country’s high-ranking law practitioners.

Another manifestation of Celing’s commitment to his office was his refusal to join a civilian-military junta disgruntled with the lukewarm performance of the Aquino administration in 1989, offering Celing leadership in the event of their success. But echoing his refusal to be bribed with the promise of heading the new government, Celing turned them down and continued to serve his office until 1991 in order to pursue greater ambitions.

As Ramon Mitra’s running mate in the 1992 elections, Celing fought a hard campaign for the vice presidency of the Philippines, but ultimately came second in the polls to Joseph Estrada.

Returning briefly to his practice with the focus on the poor, rendering them free legal aid, Celing did not participate in national politics again until the succeeding general election in 1995, which resulted in his membership in the upper house of the 10th Congress of the Philippines.

He would remain a part of the Senate in the 11th Congress, and moreover, was elected by the body as Senate President. This role would prove to be Celing’s last, as he began to experience the complications of his declining health.

Celing’s illustrious career was marked by his courage to display unblemished integrity in building the country’s laws. He proved himself a formidable voice in civic affairs, and went on to become the first Filipino to have headed at one time the Supreme Court of the Philippines and later on the Senate. In 1999, he passed away in Manila on July 11.