MANILA, Philippines?Acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra said on Thursday the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) would soon resume the nomination process for the selection of the next Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Agra, however, said he did not know if the JBC could convene in the next two or three weeks to come out with a shortlist of nominees since outgoing Chief Justice Reynato Puno has taken a vacation leave and would only be returning after the Holy Week.

?We don't have a decision yet as to what is the next step. We at JBC don't have a vice chair. But maybe we could appoint among ourselves the acting presiding officer,? Agra said in a phone interview.

Agra, who was appointed to the Department of Justice early this month, said he attended a meeting of the JBC only once. He said two other meetings have been set but the agenda items relayed to him only pertained to interviews for other vacancies in the judiciary.

The secretary said that JBC members could decide if they would still have to interview the applicants to the Supreme Court, although he said all of the applicants had been interviewed by the JBC when they were applying for other positions in the judiciary.

Agra said the JBC would have no choice but to comply with the Supreme Court's order to submit the shortlist to Malacañang on or before May 17, the day of Puno?s retirement.

Asked if the JBC would submit the shortlist before the May 10 elections, he replied, ?We don't have a timeline; my personal view is that we will finish the process soon.?

Agra said JBC would probably be interested to know if two Supreme Court justices had changed their earlier stand that only the next president should consider their nominations.

?They had conditions attached to their nomination. We may have to ask them what would be their new position now that there is a Supreme Court decision, that is if they will withdraw their nomination. I want this to be clarified,? he said.

Asked if there was anything in the Supreme Court ruling that the JBC might want to clear up, Agra pointed to an ?ambiguity? in the position of five justices who said that the ban on midnight appointments did not cover the entire judiciary.

?We want to know if this is also the view of the whole Supreme Court, of the other justices [who did not state any position on the coverage of the ban],? he said.

The JBC could technically continue its ministerial duty in processing applications for nomination to lower positions in the judiciary although the president may not make an appointment because of the election ban.