INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
Two more names have been included in the list of aspirants for the Chief Justice post.
Associate Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe, the fifth most senior justice of the Supreme Court (SC), has accepted her automatic nomination. By tradition, the five most senior associate justices of the SC are automatically nominated to become the country’s top magistrate. But the five justices have to accept the nomination before they are considered as candidate.
Of the five most senior justices, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Lucas Bersamin and Diosdado Peralta have already accepted the automatic nomination to fill the spot vacated by Chief Justice Teresita Leonardo De Castro, who reached her mandatory retirement age of 70 last October 10.
Aside from Bernabe, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, one of the members of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), said SC Associate Justice Andres Reyes Jr. is vying for the top SC post for the second time.
Reyes is a junior member of the SC having been appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte to the high tribunal only on July 12, 2017. Duterte’s first appointee to the SC was Samuel Martires, who opted to retire early from the high court and accept his appointment as Ombudsman, succeeding Conchita Carpio-Morales, herself a former SC associate justice.
Reyes, together with the other sitting SC associated justices, has been nominated to become the next Chief Justice by retired Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Raoul Victorino. /kga