Bellosillo is acting SC chief

Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Josue Bellosillo has been designated as acting Chief Justice from May 30 to June 30 because Chief Justice Hilario Davide is on an official trip to the US and Canada.

Bellosillo, 68, was also designated chairman of the Judicial and Bar Council, a post which Davide also holds. Bellosillo is the second in command in the hierarchy of the Supreme Court.

Davide would be attending a series of conferences in the US and Canada. He is expected to be back early July. On June 22, he will be the guest of honor of the Knights of Rizal in New York.

Davide, together with Justices Artemio Panganiban, Leonardo Quisumbing, and Philippine Judicial Academy Chancellor Ameurfina Herrera were invited by the Canadian government to attend the Second International Conversation on Biotechnology.

The conference is sponsored by the National Judicial Institute of Canada and the Einstein Institute of Science, Health, and the Court in collaboration with the Federal Court of Australia.

Davide and his colleagues will be holding dialogues with various Canadian agencies and officials regarding judicial reforms under a program arranged by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Canadian embassy in the Philippines.

He will also sign, in behalf of the Philippine judiciary, a $1.5-million memorandum of agreement with CIDA that would cover areas of cooperation such as judicial reforms and education, which Davide has instituted to improve the country’s judicial system.

Bellosillo was appointed by then President Corazon Aquino to the Supreme Court in March 1992. He was Court Administrator and Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals from 1986 to 1991.

Bellosillo, who started his judicial career as a judge of the defunct Court of Agrarian Reform in Iloilo in 1971, is expected to retire on November 2003.