President Rodrigo Duterte has promoted Court of Appeals Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr. to associate justice of the Supreme Court to replace Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes, who retired on July 6.
Duterte also appointed retired general Eduardo del Rosario chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, taking over the post from Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco who held it in a hold-over capacity.
Del Rosario is the former head of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council and administrator of the Office of Civil Defense under the previous administration.
The HUDCC post was once held by Vice President Leni Robredo before she quit after being barred by Duterte from attending Cabinet meetings.
Reyes, a graduate of the Ateneo Law School and brother of House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez at the Utopia fraternity, has been with the judiciary for 30 years. Now 67, the 177th associate justice of the high court only has three years to serve before his mandatory retirement age of 70.
His father, Andres Reyes Sr., also served as presiding justice of Court of Appeals while his grandfather, Alex Reyes, served as a justice in the high court.
Reyes was chosen from a shortlist of seven nominees submitted by the Judicial and Bar Council last month. He topped the list after earning the unanimous votes of all seven members of the council who are tasked to vet the nominees to judicial posts.
He is Duterte’s third appointee to the high court. The President earlier promoted Sandiganbayan Justice Samuel Martires and CA Associate Justice Noel Tijam to the high court.
Duterte is also expected to appoint another justice to the high court for the post to be vacated by the retirement of Associate Justice Jose Mendoza in August.
Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno leads the JBC, the seven-man council constitutionally tasked to screen the nominees for the vacant posts in the judiciary and the Office of the Ombudsman.
The two ex-officio members are Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II for the executive and Senator Richard Gordon for Congress.
The regular members of JBC are retired Supreme Court Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez for the retired magistrates, lawyer Jose Mejia for the academe, lawyer Milagros Fernan-Cayosa for the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, and retired Judge Toribio Ilao for the private sector.