SC justice Singh on battling cancer: ‘Get up again and fight another day’

MANILA, Philippines – Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Maria Filomena Singh shared with the public on Tuesday, March 24, her fight against cancer and her realizations after facing the tough battle.

Singh, who has been a sitting magistrate at the High Court since 2022, said she underwent chemotherapy and had surgery. After being cleared, she went back to work. She still takes oral chemotherapy medicines up to now.

According to Singh, her fight against the disease was challenging because there were days that felt heavy, days when she felt she didn’t want to get up.

“But then you think about all the people who are probably having a more difficult time and you tell yourself how can you complain with everything that has been given to you, with everything that you have been blessed with, you have no reason to complain,” Singh said during the 1st Supreme Court Distinguished Women’s Forum on Tuesday.

“So you get up again and you fight another day,” she added.

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Singh spoke during the forum alongside retired chief justice Teresita de Castro, retired SC associate justice and former ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales, and retired associate justice Angelina Sandoval Gutierrez.

Singh said she views her diagnosis as an advantage to prepare herself.

“Again that’s a reminder to all of us that we have to value each day that is given to us. To me, translating that value is by working, no, by doing what we can while we are here…And so let us not waste it. We are where we are because we were meant to do something while we are here,” the associate justice said.

Tenured magistrate

Singh was appointed the 194th SC associate justice by former president Rodrigo Duterte in May 2022. Before this, she served as presiding judge of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 85 and as associate justice of the Court of Appeals.

She earned her law degree from the Ateneo de Manila University School of Law with second honors distinction. She later obtained her Master of Laws in International Legal Studies at the Washington College of Law of the American University in Washington DC.

At present, Singh is the co-chairperson of the committee on gender responsiveness in the judiciary and the chairperson of the sub-committee for the Review of the New Code of Judicial Conduct for the Philippine Judiciary, and the sub-committee for the Review of the Code of Conduct for Court Personnel, among others.

She is also spearheading the creation of the Manual and Protocol for Women in Conflict with the Law. The SC said this will be a “step-by-step guide for the entire criminal justice sector on the unique needs of female persons deprived of liberty; from law enforcers to prosecutors and public attorneys, to judge and court personnel, to jail administrators, up to community reintegration.”

In 2025, Singh was elected president of the International Association of Women Judges.

“That is why when people ask me why do you have this urgency? It’s because of that. I feel that I am here because I need to do something, and so while I have the time, I will do it. That is regardless of whatever is happening to me. There is a purpose for you being here. So just perform it,” Singh said.

“And hopefully you do it to the satisfaction of our eternal judge and later on he will say you did well.” – Rappler.com