MANILA, Philippines—A magistrate with a reputation for being a “guillotine judge” who convicted former President Joseph Estrada of plunder is the newest member of the Supreme Court.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the main beneficiary of Estrada’s ouster in 2001, announced on Wednesday the appointment of Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Diosdado Peralta as associate justice of the 15-member high tribunal.

Peralta, 56, will replace Associate Justice Ruben Reyes who reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 on Jan. 3.

Malacañang immediately sought to quash suspicions that the appointment might be connected to the supposed plan to extend Ms Arroyo’s term by revising the 1987 Constitution.

“Every time there’s an appointment, news like this comes out … then the next question will be about Cha-cha (Charter change), that she was to stay on as president,” Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told reporters in Filipino.

Like a compass

“It’s like a compass. (The accusation) is the magnetic north of her detractors,” he said.

Critics have expressed fears that a high court dominated by Ms Arroyo’s appointees might favor petitions on Charter change.

Ms Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives had earlier announced that they would ask the Supreme Court to resolve the question on whether both chambers of Congress should vote jointly or separately once convened as a constituent assembly.

Joint voting could purportedly pave the way for Charter change since House members could easily overwhelm senators—who are said to be generally against the idea—come voting time by the sheer force of their number.

Ermita said an inventory of recent Supreme Court decisions would show that Ms Arroyo’s appointees did not necessarily favor cases involving the administration.

In 2006, Justice Antonio Carpio, an Arroyo appointee, penned a strongly worded decision junking the effort of the administration-backed Sigaw ng Bayan (Cry of the People) to revise the Constitution through people’s initiative.

The decision by the court described the effort as a “grand deception” and a “gigantic fraud.”

Arroyo father’s namesake

Ermita joked that Peralta did not get the appointment because he was the namesake of Ms Arroyo’s late father, former President Diosdado Macapagal.

“The President makes a decision based on what she reads about the qualifications of these people and also on what she knows about them,” he said. “She also asks around about the capability of her appointees.”

Peralta, an alumnus and former professor of the University of Santo Tomas law school, used to belong to the so-called “Guillotine Club,” a group of judges known for imposing the capital punishment.

As a Regional Trial Court judge, he sentenced to death more than 40 people.

Peralta is also known as the “plunder judge” for being the first to hand down a conviction for plunder since it became a heinous crime in 1991.

In 2001, Peralta, then a judge at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court, sentenced Dominga Manalili, a cashier at the Bureau of Internal Revenue, to two life terms for diverting more than P260 million in withholding tax payments into two bank accounts from 1996 to 1997. She later withdrew the money.

On Sept. 12, 2007, Peralta, along with then Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro and fellow Associate Justice Francisco Villaruz Jr., sentenced Estrada to up to 40 years in prison. Ms Arroyo pardoned Estrada the following month.

Ms Arroyo appointed Peralta to the Sandiganbayan in July 2002, then promoted him to presiding justice in March 2008, following her appointment of De Castro as associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Born on March 25, 1952, Peralta is a native of Laoag, Ilocos Norte. He has a law degree from University of Santo Tomas. He is married to Court of Appeals Associate Justice Fernanda Peralta, with whom he has four children—Dorothy, twins John Christopher and Timothy John, and John Isaac.

Good track record

In a text message, Sen. Francis Pangilinan said:

“We trust that Justice Peralta is fully aware that his appointment comes at a time when there is serious concern about ensuring the independence of the judiciary given that six more justices are retiring in the coming months.

“We hope he would be able to rise to the occasion to protect the Supreme Court’s independence at this crucial juncture in the nation.”

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, who sits in the Judicial and Bar Council that submits a short list of Supreme Court nominees to the President, said Peralta was “very well qualified” to sit in the high court.

“He has a good track record in the judiciary,” Gonzalez said. With reports from Christine O. Avendaño, Dona Z. Pazzibugan, Cyril Bonabente, Inquirer Research