Maria Lourdes Sereno

María Lourdes Aranal-Sereno (born María Lourdes Punzalan Aranal on July 2, 1960) is the 24th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines. At age 52, she is the second youngest and the first female to head the judiciary.

In August 2010, she was appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, its 169th Member and the first appointee to the High Court by President Benigno Aquino III. Sereno is the youngest appointee to the Supreme Court since Manuel Moran in 1945, but she was surpassed by Marvic Leonen in 2012 at the age of 49, and the 13th woman appointed as a Supreme Court Justice.

On 24 August 2012, President Aquino announced his appointment of Justice Sereno as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, replacing Renato Corona, who was removed from office in May 2012 after being convicted in an impeachment trial.

She is set to retire in 2030, after 20 years in office (18 years as Chief Justice), pursuant to the requirements of the 1987 Constitution.

Lourdes

Lourdes (pronunciation: [luʀd]; Lorda in Occitan, pron. ['lurðɔ]) is a small market town lying in the foothills of the Pyrenees. It is part of the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in south-western France. Prior to the apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858, the most prominent feature of the town was the fortified castle that rises up from a rocky escarpment at its centre.

In 1858 Lourdes rose to prominence in France and abroad due to the Marian apparitions seen by the peasant girl Bernadette Soubirous, who was later canonized. Shortly thereafter the city became one of the world's most important sites of pilgrimage and religious tourism. Today Lourdes hosts around six million visitors every year from all corners of the world. This constant stream of pilgrims and tourists transformed quiet Lourdes into the second most important center of tourism in France, second only to Paris, and the third most important site of international Catholic pilgrimage after Rome and the Holy Land. As of 2011, of French cities only Paris had more hotel capacity.

Lourdes (given name)

Lourdes and María de Lourdes are given names.

Notable people bearing these names include:

Lourdes Cecilia Fernández

Lourdes Cecilia Fernández (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈlourðes seˈsilja ferˈnandes]; born 2 April 1981) is an Argentine singer-songwriter, composer and actress. She is the best known as a member of Argentine girl group Bandana and as a frontman of Lourdes, a band that carries her name.

Career

Bandana (2001—2004)

As a student, Fernández was a member of two bands, Terikitungo and Seres Humanos. She was a student of Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. As a player of piano and electronic keyboards, Fernández became composing music on a computer program, which helped her to create more modern sound. In 2001, she went on an audition for talents show Popstars, which selected five girls for a girl group — Ivonne Guzmán, Valeria Gastaldi, Virginia Da Cunha, Lissa Vera and Fernández. As their emergence coincided with a period of nationwide economic depression, one of the series judges commented "this was an opportunity to shine at a very downbeat moment for Argentina". During the Popstars, Fernández was known as "la peti" ("shorty"), which was commented by judge Afo Verde that "appearance didn't matter to us, what each girl conveyed was most important". The band was named Bandana.