JBC to start search for new SC justice

MANILA, Philippines - The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) might start this month the selection process for the imminent vacancy in the Supreme Court (SC) to be created by the early retirement of Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr.

JBC member Jose Mejia said the vacancy would immediately be opened to applicants upon approval by the high court of Villarama’s request for early retirement,  submitted to the office of Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno last Monday.

“If the SC approves Justice Villarama’s early retirement when they resume session next Tuesday, then we can start the selection process and open the vacancy within the month,” Mejia told reporters yesterday.

By this projection, Mejia said nominations and applications could be filed next month and public interviews could be set in January.

He said the seven-member JBC could then come up with a shortlist of nominees by February next year, which means President Aquino may be able to name his sixth appointee in the SC before the period covered by the election ban on midnight appointments.

Posts in the SC, however, are exempted from the ban per the high court’s 2010 ruling for the vacancy in the retirement of then chief justice Reynato Puno, which President Aquino had questioned.

Villarama was supposed to retire on April 14 next year when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70, but in his letter to Sereno, the magistrate requested to avail himself of optional retirement effective Jan. 16, 2016 due to his “deteriorating health condition.”

His condition was brought about by his double-knee metal implantation in 2013 and his cataract operation in 2014.

“For several years, he has been experiencing difficulty in breathing, hypertension and symptoms prostate illness prevalent among aging men,” read his letter.

He started his career in the judiciary in 1970 as a Supreme Court technical assistant. He rose from the ranks to become a regional trial court judge in 1986, then a Court of Appeals associate justice in 1998 and a Supreme Court associate justice in 2009.

Of the 15 current justices of the high court, five were appointed by Aquino, namely: Sereno and Associate Justices Bienvenido Reyes, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Marvic Leonen and Francis Jardeleza.