Senior Associate Justice Antonio Tirol Carpio, praised by some as the best Chief Justice the country never had, formally retired from the Supreme Court on Saturday after celebrating his 70th birthday.
Carpio hit his mandatory retirement age after 18 years in the high tribunal, penning 935 decisions and more than 100 opinions, which his fellow justices say have become “canonical,” and proudly noted that he bowed out with no backlog of cases on his table.
The native of Davao City was sworn in as member of the Supreme Court on October 26, 2001 after being appointed by then-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
His townmate—current President Rodrigo Duterte, the longtime mayor of Davao—did not appoint him to the highest chair of the judiciary, but Carpio had declined automatic nominations twice before.
In recent years, Carpio has repeatedly asserted the Philippines’ rights in the West Philippine Sea, a personal advocacy he said he will continue after his retirement.
He was one of the legal luminaries behind the country’s case against China before the international tribunal that found “no legal basis” for China’s “nine-dash line” claim in the area in 2016.
The justice repeatedly cautioned the government about its China policy, and said he would be willing to share with the government his opinion on the WPS if sought.
Carpio had served intermittently as acting chief for more than eight months, according to former Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban.
Carpio did this for the last time in the week after the recent retirement of Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin, whose appointment last year by Duterte also meant Carpio would never become the top magistrate.
Carpio also declined his automatic nomination as CJ out of a refusal to benefit from then-Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno’s ouster. Teresita Leonardo-De Castro was appointed to replace Sereno.
He also declined nomination in 2010, when then-Chief Justice Reynato Puno retired, because he was of the position that then-President Arroyo could not make midnight appointments, as she was about to turn over the reins of government to Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
However, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, retired justice and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, and detained Senator Leila de Lima—also a former Justice secretary—said they agree that Carpio was “the best chief justice we never had.”
“He is always a solid anchor, a firm and impenetrable rock, and an immovable tower of strength that holds the Court together when it truly mattered,” the incumbent Supreme Court justices said in a plaque of recognition for Carpio.
He will have the retirement privileges of a chief justice, the tribunal noted.
Carpio’s final ponencias include an order for the Energy Regulatory Commission to review its approval of Meralco’s unbundled rates, and a declaration as valid of the legal provision saying government nurses should get a minimum base pay of Salary Grade 15.
In the last en banc session he attended, Carpio voted to dismiss former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.’s election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo, a minority position in a court that ruled to first hear the parties on several issues before proceeding.
His last words on the case were a warning against a change in court rules to “accommodate” Marcos, whom he said lost in the initial vote recount.
Carpio is also leaving behind the cases challenging Duterte’s war on drugs, of which he had been in charge, but remain undecided on two years after they were filed.
“There was no more time because the documents are voluminous, so I cannot rush it also,” he told reporters last week. He refused to say how he would have voted.
Upon Carpio’s retirement, the case will be reassigned to another justice.
In his years in the court, Carpio dissented in the acquittal of Arroyo “• who had appointed him to the tribunal “• of plunder, and the granting of bail to former senator and plunder defendant Juan Ponce Enrile. He also wrote the decision upholding a plunder charge against former senator Jinggoy Estrada.
Carpio voted to declare the Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel as unconstitutional, and voted against the continued detention of de Lima, the ouster of Sereno, the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, and the extensions of martial law in Mindanao.
Praising him for his “wisdom,” Carpio’s fellow justices said his opinions were “clear, erudite, strategic, and always with a perspective towards insisting on a just result that should benefit the Filipino people.”