Three hours it took for them to get there, paddling from the faraway town of Lubao in Pampanga. It would take another three getting back. Six hours total for a boatload of fish and a ringside seat to World War II.

Hugo Gutierrez, Jr., never really dreamed of anything more other than the hard-earned catch he brought home to his family. They traded the fish at market for food and other goods. The work was rewarding enough in that his family never really went hungry even during the Japanese occupation. But for the 15-year old Hugo, this was not the life he would know. Post-war Philippines would change everything, and the young man would find himself paddling away from the fish in the sea.

In a couple of decades, the fisherman becomes Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. Gutierrez’s career spans almost 40 years in government and public service, with a long list of appointments and achievements in the different fields of law. As a member of the Court of Appeals before his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1982, he was often lauded by the late founding publisher of the Philippine Star, Max Soliven, as the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. of the Philippines. Holmes was a celebrated Supreme Court Justice in the United States of America during the early part of the 20th century, known as "The Great Dissenter" because of his brilliant legal reasoning.

Retired since 1993 and living a quiet life, Gutierrez currently presides as Chairman of the Board at Paramount Life and General Insurance Corporation. It was a long road from the coastline to the boardroom, and it’s easy to see how different things would have been had he followed quite a number of paths before him in his youth.

“I wanted to take up medicine,” recounts Gutierrez. “But my father told me that ‘we may not be able to afford that’ and our income was not very big. With Law, you can work in the daytime and study at night,” he added. It was a very fortunate thing, then, that Gutierrez and his two siblings were able to go to college at the same time.

Even before going to college, Gutierrez was already finding ways to earn a living. Aside from being a fisherman in 1942 during the occupation, he became a shipping clerk for the Quartermaster Corps of the Army Forces, Western Pacific (AFWESPAC) an American command responsible for the reconstruction of Manila in 1945. “When the U.S. forces came back I hitched a ride to Manila where I found a job as a shipping clerk at the pier. The Americans were preparing for their invasion of Japan so they were stockpiling materials there,” he recalls. Gutierrez was at the pier, supervising the unloading of everything. His job was then to dispatch trucks to their correct boats and cargo holds.

From 1946 to 1950, Gutierrez enjoyed the privilege of being a University Scholar of the University of the Philippines (UP). He then graduated with a Bachelor of Laws at the UP College of Law in 1952. That same year he passed the Bar exams and came to work at the US Veterans Administration in the Philippines as a Supervising Attorney. This accomplishment, arguably, made Gutierrez the first Filipino to be designated in a Federal employee position normally reserved for citizens of the United States. The post enabled Gutierrez to go around the country, helping veterans, investigating claims, and making sure that orphaned children were properly given financial aid.

After his work with the Americans, Gutierrez moved on to a fledgling bureau called the Social Security System (SSS) in 1960. He slowly rose up the SSS ladder starting as a Commission Technical Assistant until ultimately becoming an Assistant Manager of the Field Services Department. During this time, Gutierrez jumped on opportunities to further his education with a Fulbright-Hayes and DeWitt scholarship at the University of Michigan in the States. His efforts earned him a Master of Laws from the University of Michigan Law School.

Gutierrez’s drive to learn, and continue learning, was a good sign of a man who was willing to better himself for all the right reasons. And a man who learned a lot could teach even more. Immediately after his return from the US in 1967, he was “drafted” into UP as an Associate Professor of Law where he taught for close to seven years. Concurrently, he also became head of the Division of Publications of the UP Law Center.

The 70s for Gutierrez play out like a human highlight reel. Martial Law began to rear its head in 1972, a year later, he found himself working further in the government as an Assistant Solicitor General. In just a few years, around 1977, he was appointed to the Court of Appeals as Associate Justice. He was only the second person in Philippine history to make a jump from the Solicitor General’s office to become Associate Justice at the CA.

Topping the number of cases finished at the CA, along with great press from his friend Soliven, made Gutierrez a prime candidate for the Supreme Court. Sure enough, by 1982, Gutierrez became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, finding a seat as its first 15th member – another landmark achievement in our history.

For his work, Gutierrez was honored with a Doctor of Jurisprudence (honoris causa) from St. Anthony University in 1985. In 1990 he was bestowed the “Jurist of the Decade” award by the UP Law Alumni Association, one of many awards and honors given by public and private institutions in all his years of service.
Enjoying retirement with his wife Esperanza, they met during choir practice in the mid 1940s, Gutierrez still does things related to his former career, but mostly, he just relaxes and watches movies on DVD – a fitting reward for 40 years of serving the country.

Esperanza, meanwhile, is involved with the Supreme Court Ladies Circle as Program Director. She’s also the president and director of the Asosasyon Damas De Filipinas, which has an orphanage in Paco, Manila; and director of the Manila Girls Scouts. Together throughout his career, Hugo and Esperanza have travelled extensively and visited 51 countries over the years.

They have two children: Daniel, who is a lawyer, and Mae Carolyn, a pediatrician and pulmonoligist who, unfortunately, passed away in 1993.
Aside from being Chairman of Paramount Life, Gutierrez held other positions in the private sector. He was Chairman of the Board of the Ugnayan Cultural Foundation, Inc.; Chairman, Abacus Growth Fund, Inc.; Chairman of Globus Care, Inc.; director of Clark Power, Inc.; and director of Prime Gaming (Phil.) Inc.

He gave all the rest up, except for Paramount Life, “I enjoy those people,” he enthuses. “I like the way the company takes care of its policyholders. And they are progressive, also. They have entered into all kinds of services, including the direct marketing of affordable health and life insurance that cater to the needs of the old people.”

Deep inside there is still that young fisherman who suddenly finds himself grateful for all the years that have gone by. “When I was a fisherman, there was a fishing outfit called a palapag; it’s a big bamboo raft with nets. When you enclose a portion of water and when the tide goes down, the fish gets trapped. I thought to myself, ‘Kung magkaroon lang ako ng dalawang palapag, tama na ito.’ That was my only mission in life at the time!” laughs Gutierrez. With his wife beside him, life seems to be going just right, “We are very happy because we are satisfied with what we have.”

The fisherman from Lubao, Pampanga paddles onward.