Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra. INQUIRER.net file photo / CATHY MIRANDA
MANILA, Philippines — Department of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra has been nominated to the position of Supreme Court Associate Justice.
In a letter addressed to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) dated November 19, retired Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Raoul Victorino nominated Guevarra to the post vacated by Supreme Court Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta.
Victorino said he knows Guevarra as a “dedicated public servant with unblemished records.”
“I believe that he possesses the necessary credentials, professional experience and the motivation to discharge the duties as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court,” Victorino said.
“I have known Secretary Guevarra to be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence and his sense of patriotism through his socio-civic engagements,” he added.
Guevarra said he will think about the endorsement “very, very seriously”, saying that he still has “lots of work to do” in the justice department.
“I have not really thought about it because I am really very busy at the work at the DOJ… At the proper time perhaps, I will consider it,” Guevarra told reporters in the Senate following the Senate’s approval of the justice department’s 2020 budget.
But Guevarra said he is not closing doors on the post.
“I don’t think any lawyer will close the possibility to be appointed to such a lofty position,” Guevarra said.
Prior to his appointment as justice secretary, Guevarra had served at the Palace – first as Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs (DESLA) under then Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa Jr. during the administration of former President Benigno S. Aquino III. He was then tapped by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea as Senior Deputy Executive Secretary under the current administration.
Guevarra was also an accredited arbitrator of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and a member of the Philippine legal team created during the previous administration in the arbitration case concerning the West Philippine Sea at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands.
Guevarra graduated from the Ateneo School of Law and placed second in the 1985 bar examination.