MANILA, Philippines (Updated 2:22 p.m.) — The Supreme Court has appointed retired Associate Justice Arturo Brion the chancellor of the Philippine Judicial Academy (PhilJA), the Judiciary’s training and education arm.
In an en banc notice dated May 11 but made public on Wednesday, the high court said Brion’s term will start on June 1, after the end of Chancellor Adolfo Azcuna's term.
The PhilJA was created by virtue of Republic Act 8557. It serves as “training school for justices, judges, court personnel, lawyers and aspirants to judicial posts.”
It will also craft and implement a curriculum for judicial education and hold seminars and trainings to improve legal knowledge, moral fitness, probity, efficiency and capability.
The chief justice serves as the ex-officio chairman of PhilJA and the senior associate justice as the ex-officio vice-chairman.
The executive officials of the Academy meanwhile are composed of a chancellor, a vice-chancellor and an executive secretary. They shall serve a two-year term.
Brion will serve until May 31, 2023. Prior to becoming PhilJA chancellor, Brion served the SC for eight years and retired on December 29, 2016.
The STAR reported that Brion obtained his law degree from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1994 and he topped the Bar examinations in the same year.
Prior to his SC stint, Brion served as secretary of the labor department. He also served as an associate justice of the Court of Appeals from 2003 to 2006.
He also worked as a senior partner of the Siguion Reyna Montecillo and Ongsiako Law office specializing in labor laws, before he entered government work. — Kristine Joy Patag