President Rodrigo Duterte has appointed Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Alexander Gesmundo to the Supreme Court to replace Associate Justice Jose Catral Mendoza who reached his compulsory retirement of 70 last August 13, 2017.
In a transmittal letter sent to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea informed her of the President’s appointment of Gesmundo as the 178th associate justice of the 15-member bench.
Gesmundo is the fourth appointee of President Duterte and the second appointee from Ateneo De Manila University and a member of the Fraternal Order of Utopia.
Duterte’s third appointee, former Court of Appeals Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr., is also a graduate of Ateneo and a member of Utopia where House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez is also a part of.
The first two appointees of Duterte, Associate Justices Samuel Martires and Noel Tijam, were both from San Beda College of Law.
Gesmundo chairs the 7th Division of the Sandiganbayan and co-chairs other divisions. He is a member of the Supreme Court’s Sub-Committee on Revision of Rules on Criminal Procedure and a professional lecturer at the Department of Remedial Law of the Philippine Judicial Academy.
Prior to his stint at the Judiciary, he worked as a trial attorney at the Office of the Solicitor General and awarded Most Outstanding Solicitor in 1998.
He was a Bar examiner in Remedial Law in 2009.
