Cecilia Muñoz-Palma (November 22, 1913 – January 2, 2006) was 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. While on the Court, Muñoz-Palma penned several opinions adverse to the martial law government of her appointer, President Marcos. After retiring from the Court, she became a leading figure in the political opposition against Marcos, and was elected to the Batasang Pambansa as an Assemblywoman from Quezon City. When Corazon Aquino was installed as president following the 1986 People Power Revolution, Muñoz-Palma was appointed chairwoman of the 1986 Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution. Background The daughter of Pedro P. Muñoz, who would serve as representative from Batangas's 2nd district, Muñoz-Palma enrolled at St. Scholastica’s College in Manila and was the valedictorian of high school class of 1931. She earned her law degree from the University of the Philippines College of Law, and a Master of Laws degree from Yale Law School. She was the first woman to be elected as president of the College of Law student council (1936-37), president of the Portia Club, first place in the first oratorical contest held by the U.P. Debating Club (1934), and recipient of the Dr. Mendoza-Guanzon medal for excellence in oratory and the Justice Abad Santos medal for excellence in debating. She topped the 1937 Philippine Bar exams with a 92.6% rating. 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 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. Dissenter from martial rule By the time she retired from the Court in 1978, Muñoz-Palma had become identified, along with Claudio Teehankee, as a dissenter from rulings that affirmed the decrees and actions enforced by her appointer, President Ferdinand Marcos, during his martial law rule. As early as 1975, she had expressed skepticism that "a referendum under martial rule can be of no