Chief presidential legal counsel named before Jan. 15

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang said yesterday that the new chief presidential legal counsel will be designated on or before Jan. 15 next year, but did not confirm or deny reports that he is a former classmate of President Aquino at the Ateneo de Manila University.

“It might be done on the early part of January. Before the 15th we will make an announcement,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda told Palace reporters in a briefing.

He refused to make any comment though if lawyer Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, a classmate of Aquino since grade school up to college at the Ateneo, will be named to the post.

Both took up economics and graduated in 1981.

“We’re looking at possible nominees. But, based on the report that came out, Ben Caguioa, I understand, is under consideration,” he said, adding that they have yet to verify and await advise from the office of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr.

Lacierda, who took his pre-law at the De La Salle University and obtained his law degree from the Ateneo law school, said he knew Caguioa personally.

“I know Ben Caguioa personally. He is a very able lawyer. He is four batches ahead of me in Ateneo law school. But we’ll let you know if there is confirmation on who will be the new chief presidential legal counsel,” he said.

Nonetheless, Lacierda said acting chief presidential legal counsel Eloisa de Vera-Sy is handling the job for Eduardo de Mesa, who served as Aquino’s chief legal counsel for more than two years and who has been transferred to the Bases Conversion and Development Authority.

Caguioa is not just a classmate of Aquino, but of Ochoa as well, along with other government officials like Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares, Land and Registration Authority’s Eulalio Diaz.

Caguioa, who passed the Bar in 1986, is a senior partner of the Caguioa and Gatmaitan Law Office.

He joined SyCip Salazar Hernandez and Gatmaitan Law Office in 1986 and was a partner there from 1994 until February 2007.

Caguioa went on leave for a year in 1987, when he joined his father – the late Court of Appeals (CA) justice Eduardo Caguioa – in practicing the legal profession, where he handled mostly appeal cases in the CA and the Supreme Court.

He was a professor at the colleges of Law of the Ateneo and San Sebastian College, where he taught obligations and contracts, property, statutory construction, and administrative law.

Caguioa has been cited as a leading Philippine lawyer in the Dispute Resolution field by Chambers and Partners in its 2010 and 2011 Asia-Pacific publications.

He specializes in litigation and arbitration, having done so for the last 25 years. He has devoted much of his career to civil and commercial litigation before courts and quasi-judicial bodies of all levels, and to arbitration before various arbitration bodies.

According to his law office’s website, Caguioa has also “actively practiced before the different levels of the prosecutorial system, and has acted as private prosecutor or defense counsel before the regular courts and the Sandiganbayan.”