Justice chief tops JBC list for SC vacancy

MANILA, Philippines – Justice Secretary Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa has topped the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) shortlist for the vacancy in the Supreme Court (SC) left by the early retirement of associate justice Martin Villarama Jr. last Friday.

In voting yesterday, Caguioa garnered the unanimous approval of all seven members of the council tasked to vet nominees to judicial posts.

Malacañang said it will make the necessary appointment to the SC upon evaluation of the qualifications of the shortlisted candidates submitted by the JBC.

President Aquino’s former chief legal counsel and classmate in elementary and college, he is said to be the top contender for the SC post.

In his earlier public interview, Caguioa said the President could not be held accountable for the Disbursement Acceleration Program after his term ends in June.

Caguioa took up economics and later law at the Ateneo de Manila University, where he was a classmate and close friend of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares and Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, among others.

Son of the late Court of Appeals (CA) justice Eduardo Caguioa, he was a senior partner of the Caguioa and Gatmaytan law office.

Prior to passing the Bar in 1986, he obtained his law degree from the Ateneo de Manila law school in 1985, along with several members of the current Aquino administration.

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

Caguioa went on leave for a year in 1987 to join his father, handling mostly appeal cases in the CA and the SC.

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

Caguioa said he is happy with his inclusion in the JBC shortlist, saying he did not expect to get the nod of all seven members of the JBC.

He also addressed his reportedly being a top choice for the post due to his  closeness to President Aquino.

“The President has his own mind. He doesn’t make choices or decisionsbased on relationship; I never knew him that way. I hope people see me other than being a classmate. That’s not the only thing I can bring to the table,” he told reporters in a chance interview.

When asked how the reforms he introduced during his three-month stint in the Department of Justice (DOJ) would continue if he is appointed to the high court, the justice secretary said he would recommend Undersecretary and spokesman Emmanuel Caparas to replace him.

“We were appointed here together at the same time so he is most qualified to finish the reforms we started,” he said.

The shortlist included four other nominees for associate justice of the high court: CA Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr. and Associate Justices Jose Reyes Jr. and Apolinario Bruselas Jr., and former Commission on Audit chairperson Ma. Gracia Pulido-Tan.

The two Reyeses also got seven votes from the council chaired by Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, while Tan and Bruselas garnered five and four votes, respectively.

The JBC picked the five final nominees in its shortlist from an initial list of 16 aspirants.

Caguioa is a member of the JBC, but was substituted by deputy executive secretary for legal affairs Menardo Guevarra in this instance.

The other members of the council are Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas Jr., retired SC justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, retired CA justice Aurora Santiago-Lagman and lawyers Jose Mejia and Milagros Fernan-Cayosa.

Villarama retired last Friday after availing of optional or early retirement due to “deteriorating health condition” following his double-knee metal implantation in 2013 and his cataract operation in 2014.

Villarama, who was appointed justice in 2009 after he rose from the ranks in the judiciary since 1970, was supposed to retire from the SC upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 on April 14, a period covered by the ban on appointments during the election period.

The position of the chief justice and justices of the SC are exempted from the ban per the high court’s 2010 ruling for the vacancy in the retirement of then chief justice Reynato Puno.

President Aquino had questioned the ruling, and his position was supposed to be tested by the vacancy to be left by Villarama’s retirement in April. – With Aurea Calica, Delon Porcalla