Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Andres Reyes Jr. said he opted to accept the nomination for Chief Justice despite the tradition of seniority because “justice needs a servant to really serve justice.”
“I volunteer myself,” Reyes said on Thursday during the public interview with members of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC)
Reyes has been with the SC for only a year having been appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte on July 2017.
However, Reyes rose from the ranks starting as a Metropolitan Trial Court Judge to Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeals.
If appointed, he said he believed that he won’t have difficulty working with his colleagues in introducing reforms.
“I have worked with some of them while they were still at the Court of Appeals,” he said.
“The Supreme Court is the bastion of democracy and the Supreme Court will follow what is dictated in the Constitution,” he said.
Asked on the ouster of former Chief Justices Renato Corona and Maria Lourdes Sereno, Reyes said: “it’s a wake-up call for us to be always on our toes, and to always be adherent to our Constitution”. /vvp