President Rodrigo Duterte has appointed Marlon Casquejo as commissioner of the Commission on Elections in place of Christian Robert Lim who retired in February.
Malacañang said that the president signed Casquejo’s appointment paper on June 18.
Casquejo served as the assistant regional election director of Comelec-Davao prior to his latest appointment.
The President is also looking for another new Comelec Commissioner to replace Arthur Lim, whose term also ended on February 2018.
Malacañang also said that Emily R. Alino-Geluz was appointed the associate justice of the Court of Appeals while Georgina Dumpit Hidalgo was named associate justice of the Sandiganbayan.
Meanwhile, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III remains as a contender to succeed Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales who is retiring on July 26 after completing her seven-year term as chief of the anti-graft body.
During a public panel interview conducted by the Judicial and Bar Council, Bello said that the Office of the Ombudsman has already resolved the cases against him over a 1988 contract involving the Philippine Reclamation Authority (PRA) where he served as general manager and chief executive officer.
“Fortunately, I found out, Your Honor, that the case has been resolved in our favor,” Bello told JBC members when asked about the reported charges.
Rule 4, Section 5 of JBC rules states that an applicant for any judicial post or the Ombudsman and Deputy Ombudsman is disqualified from being nominated for the appointment if he or she faces pending criminal or regular administrative cases.
After the interview, Bello showed reporters a certification from the Office of the Ombudsman stating that he has “no pending criminal and administrative cases” with the anti-graft body, contrary to reports that he still faces charges.
Bello secured the clearance dated June 19, a day before the public panel interview.
Other candidates seeking the post of Ombudsman include Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Martires, Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Efren dela Cruz, Davao judge Carlos Espero II, and lawyers Edna Herrera-Batacan, Rey Nathaniel Ifurung, Rainier Madrid, Felito Ramirez and Rex Rico and Special Prosecutor Edilberto Sandoval.
Meanwhile, Martires, who is set to retire from the judiciary in January next year, faces rough sailing in his bid for the Ombudsman post after a group of Catholic priests, evangelical pastors, and theological teachers accused him of the “lack of required probity for the job.”
The group cited Martires’ refusal to inhibit in the quo warranto case against ousted chief justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno and his “biased line of questioning” during the oral arguments on the case where he raised a question on the connection between “mental illness’ and ‘invoking God as the source of personal strength.”
Martires has denied the allegation.
“My intention was to actually defend her that there is nothing wrong to invoke God. It was not meant to shame a person, and if that person is referred to as Sereno, I apologize to her,” he stressed.
“I might utter sometimes bad words, but never faith shame a woman either in public or private,” he said.
In a related development, the Supreme Court has recommended to the JBC the nomination of three Court of Appeals associate justices and its court administrator to the SC post that would be vacated by Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco.
Those recommended by the SC were CA Associate Justice Rosmari Carandang with 10 votes, Court Administrator Jose Midas P. Marquez with eight votes, and CA Associate Justices Jose Reyes and Ramon Garcia with six votes each.
Aside from Carandang, Marquez, Reyes and Garcia, the other aspirants to Velasco’s post are CA Associate Justices Ramon Bato, Ramon Hernando, Ramon Garcia, Oscar Badelles, Manuel Barrios, Apolinario Bruselas and Amy Lazaro-Javier, Davao City regional trial court (RTC) Judge Carlos Espero, and former Ateneo de Manila College of Law dean Cesar Villanueva.
Justice Velasco graduated at the University of the Philippines in 1971 and placed sixth in the bar examinations with a grade of 89.85 per cent on the same year.
He was a private law practitioner for 20 years before joining the government service in 1995 as Department of Justice undersecretary. In 1998, he was appointed CA associate justice and later on was appointed court administrator in 2001. He was appointed to the SC on March 31, 2006.
