JBC accepting applications for SC justice

MANILA, Philippines - The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) yesterday announced they are accepting applications for the post to be vacated by Supreme Court (SC) Justice Roberto Abad, who is set to retire in May.

Abad will retire when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 on May 22.

Aspirants for the SC post should submit their applications to the JBC Secretariat on or before March 18.

Abad, who became the 165th member of the SC on Aug. 7, 2009, earned his law degree at the Ateneo de Manila University in 1968 where he was on the Dean’s list.

According to the SC website, Abad first engaged in private practice as a trial attorney at the Jose Diokno Law Office before serving as an associate attorney in the office of former chief justice Fred Ruiz Castro.

In 1975, he joined the Office of the Solicitor General where he served as solicitor for 10 years before he was promoted to assistant solicitor general in 1985.

His career in the academe began in 1978 when the late chief justice Roberto Concepcion, then dean of the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Civil Law, recruited him to teach Constitutional Law and Public International Law.

He became dean of the UST School of Law in 2008.

Abad authored two books, “Practical Book in Legal Writing” in 2002 and “Fundamentals of Legal Writing” in 2004.

When former chief justice Reynato Puno named him Bar chairman in 2011, Abad revised the old system of the Bar examinations by prescribing a syllabus for each subject to make reviewing for the Bar exams less rigorous, and partly adopted a multiple choice question system complimented by practical essay to qualify those who are to be admitted to the practice of law.