HAYDEE B. YORAC - Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation

Ramos declared “total war on poverty” or some such variation but did not do enough to change
the socioeconomic landscape for the better. Deeply frustrated, Yorac said, “Many of the
country’s leaders find the prevailing situation to their advantage, so they have an interest in
perpetuating many of the things that we complain about—while being verbally against them, at
the same time being actually supportive of them.”
With the completion of her work at the NUC, and with her term at the Comelec also finally
over, Yorac decided to take some time off for herself. She returned to North America, visited
Harvard and Yale, Chicago and Vancouver (where most of her family now lived), and then
moved on to Europe.
Upon her return, Yorac accepted an offer to be a partner at the Azcuna, Sarmiento and Chua
law firm. It was her first chance at private practice, and a most welcome change, not only
because she no longer had to answer to government officials, but because she was finally out of
the limelight. She now had time for many of the things she enjoyed but had had little time for—
books, plays, concerts, her pet dogs—and, she had to admit as well, she was making more money
than at any other time in her life. Yorac was unapologetic about opting for private practice and
wanting to earn well. At the same time, she made sure the public knew that she was not about to
compromise her principles. She said, “Private interests need to be protected, too. But there are
certain limits to which you go for the purpose. Some lawyers go all the way, including the
illegal, to defend private interests. I would never do that. I make that clear to everybody, to all
my clients. I will never approach a judge, or approach the administrative bodies. I will appeal, I
will do my best to protect your rights. But that’s it. If you don’t like that, then you can forget it.”
But Yorac was not to be out of the limelight for very long. In the run-up to the 1998
presidential election, she was asked by one of the aspirants, Senator Raul Roco, to be his running
mate. She quickly turned down the offer, knowing that they had no chance of winning. Instead,
she accepted an invitation from another presidential candidate, former defense secretary and
Armed Forces chief of staff Renato de Villa, and his running mate, Oscar Orbos, to be one of
their candidates for senator. Despite running on a platform of women’s rights, support for the
peace process, and a crusade against graft and corruption, Yorac lost. But she did not lag too far
behind the twelve winners, not a poor showing for someone who had no party of her own and
who had steadfastly refused to make a fool of herself by singing and dancing onstage like most
other candidates.
Joseph Ejercito Estrada won the presidency in 1998, and he was quick to tap Yorac for her
skills as well as for the integrity and credibility that she would bring into his administration. She
was in the United States when Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora announced to the media that
she had agreed to head the National Anti-Corruption Commission. Zamora also claimed that she
was studying at Harvard on government expense. It was an incensed Yorac who returned to
Manila and immediately denied Zamora’s statements. For one thing, she had not been at
Harvard, she said, she had been at Yale (and also visiting on the West Coast). For another, she
said, the position offered to her by the new government was a toothless façade.
Unperturbed, the new president then offered Yorac another job, this time as head of the
National Peace Forum (NPF), to revive the flagging negotiations with the left-wing National
Democratic Front. This she could not turn down, but she insisted that she come in only as a parttime
adviser. Her stint with the NPF was cut short, however, when President Estrada was
accused of plunder and his impeachment trial began. Yorac quit the NPF and called on her
former boss to resign. Like many anti-Estrada Filipinos, she participated in the protest rallies and
marches that culminated in the second People Power Revolt in January 2001.