As a human rights defender for over fifty years, Nilda Sevilla steadfastly worked for institutional reforms and societal justice in the Philippines. She taught political science in college before, during and after the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship. At the height of the resistance to the repressive regime, she helped organize a faculty union, serving as its president and achieving legal victory for her illegally dismissed colleagues. As Co-chairperson of the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) and as legislative staff chief in the House of Representatives, she actively participated in lawmaking that led to landmark human rights laws notably against enforced disappearance and torture, on death penalty prohibition, and giving martial law victims recognition and reparation, among others.