The Judicial and Bar Council will start on Jan. 6, 2016 its public interviews of aspirants for a seat in the Supreme Court to be left vacant by the early retirement of Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr. next month.
Lawyer Jose Mejia, member of the seven-member body tasked to screen nominees to posts in the judiciary, revealed they have set the interviews for 16 nominees from Jan. 6 to 8 next year.
After the interviews, Mejia said the council could then come up with a short list by February next year, which means President Aquino may be able to name his sixth appointee in the high tribunal before the period covered by the election ban on midnight appointments.
But posts in the SC are exempted from the ban per SC’s 2010 ruling for the vacancy in the retirement of then Chief Justice Reynato Puno, which President Aquino had questioned.
Among the nominees for the post is Justice Secretary Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, President Aquino’s former chief presidential legal counsel and classmate from grade school to college.
The other nominees for the SC vacancy are: Court of Appeals Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr. and Associate Justices Apolinario Bruselas, Rosmari Carandang, Mariflor Castillo and Stephen Cruz, Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Amparo Cabotaje-Tang and Associate Justices Maria Cristina Cornejo and Alex Quiroz, CA Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, former Commission on Audit chairperson Maria Gracia Pulido-Tan, DOJ Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras III, Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Gerard Mosquera, Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 90 presiding judge Reynaldo Daway, Citizen’s Battle Against Corruption party-list Rep. Cinchona Cruz-Gonzales and lawyer Joe-Santos Bisquera.
The seven-member JBC is the constitutional body tasked to accept nominations and applications, screen and come up with a short list of nominees for vacancies in the judiciary and the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Constitution requires a justice of the SC to be natural-born citizen, at least 40 years old, with at least 15 years of experience as judge of a lower court or lawyer. The law also requires that the magistrate “must be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity, and independence.”
Villarama was supposed to retire on April 14 next year when he reaches mandatory retirement age of 70. But in his letter to Sereno, the magistrate requested to avail of optional retirement effective Jan. 16, 2016 due to “deteriorating health condition.”
His condition was brought about by his double-knee metal implantation in 2013 and his cataract operation in 2014.
Of the 15 current justices of the high court, five were appointed by Aquino—Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and Associate Justices Bienvenido Reyes, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Marvic Leonen and Francis Jardeleza.