To recognize the exemplary service by Senior Associate Justice Estela M. Perlas Bernabe, who mandatorily retires from public service on Saturday, the Supreme Court has created a special award in her name.
This will be given to a retiring SC justice who shall have served as magistrate in all levels of court without leaving any case pending for resolution upon promotion to a higher court.
In the Special En Banc session held at the SC Session Hall on Friday, celebrating the retirement of Bernabe, Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo revealed that the Supreme Court has approved the creation of an award in her honor dubbed as The Senior Associate Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe Exemplary Career Jurist Award.
“This is the first of its kind in the history of the Philippine Judiciary,” the Chief Justice said.
“This award shall be henceforth conferred only to the distinct set of Justices of the Supreme Court who have served the Judiciary in all court levels, particularly from a trial court, a lower collegiate court, and finally, up to the Supreme Court, and have achieved a zero-backlog or zero docket upon every promotion tothe next level court, until their retirement from the Supreme Court, as what Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe exceptionally accomplished during the course of her 26-year judicial career,” Gesmundo stressed.
The top magistrate said that by conferring this award, “the Court hopes that future career jurists will aspire to receive this honor upon their own retirement, and traverse the same path of unwavering dedication to judicial service the Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe paved for them.”
Chief Justice Gesmundo led the SC magistrates in paying their tributes to Bernabe by presenting her the traditional tokens of the Supreme Court and giving their own personal tributes.
The tokens include the Philippine flag, the Supreme Court flag, commemorative pin, seal, brass shingle, judicial robe, gavel, Statuette of Judicial Excellence, and The Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos Award.
“If the fullness of one’s life is measured by how much one has emptied himself or herself to others, then, it is indisputable that at this moment, Senior Associate Justice Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe has already lived a full life,” Gesmundo said.
Bernabe also received from her colleagues the Judicial Medal of Distinction, which “is especially awarded to retiring Justices of the Supreme Court who excelled in the quintessential duty of efficient case disposition, particularly by leaving no case in her docket, or no case pending for resolution upon her retirement from the Court.”
A native of Plaridel, Bulacan, Senior Associate Justice Perlas-Bernabe earned her Bachelor of Science in Commerce degree, magna cum laude, at St. Paul College Manila in 1972.
After graduating salutatorian from the Ateneo de Manila College of Law and passing the Bar in 1976, she joined the Judiciary as a technical assistant in the office of (then Court Administrator) Justice Lorenzo Relova.
She subsequently engaged in private practice from 1978 to 1996, before returning to judicial service in 1996 as Presiding Judge of Branch 66 of the Makati City Metropolitan Trial Court, Branch 66.
She was promoted to the Regional Trial Court, Branch 142 of Makati City in 2000, and to the Court of Appeals as an Associate Justice on March 15, 2004. Senior Associate Justice Perlas-Bernabe was appointed 171st Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on September 16, 2011.