As a lawyer who had argued several cases before the Supreme Court en banc, then Justice Conchita Carpio Morales was someone you do not face unprepared.
“She’s bound to have difficult questions,” said lawyer and UP law professor Harry Roque, who had represented various parties in oral arguments during Morales’ term as magistrate.
So it was no surprise for Roque that Morales, now the Ombudsman, was no shrinking violet when she took the witness stand in the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.
Roque said she was analytical, outspoken and assertive, based on what he saw in the numerous times he argued his case before her and her colleagues in the high court. Her conduct in the impeachment trial was just to be expected.
“That’s vintage Carpio Morales,” he said.
When she was still at the Supreme Court, Morales voted in favor of the creation of a truth commission investigating the Arroyo administration.
She withdrew from the Chief Justice race after the retirement of Chief Justice Reynato Puno and dissented on the Supreme Court decision that the judiciary is not covered by the rule against midnight appointments.
Morales also dissented in the high court’s decision upholding former National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) Chair Romulo Neri’s invocation of executive privilege in refusing to divulge information on the National Broadband Network (NBN)-ZTE deal.
She also voted against the constitutionality of the Mining Act, which the Arroyo administration was pushing.
Roque said Morales also authored the ruling that junked the calibrated preemptive response policy of the Arroyo administration.
“The Ombudsman rose from the ranks and was one of the Abad Santos Girls or the favorites of (former Justice) Secretary Vicente Abad Santos, the other one being Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago,” Roque said.
“They were roommates at the Department of Justice (DOJ) when they were state counsels,” he added.
Morales graduated valedictorian in elementary and in high school at Paoay Elementary School and Paoay North Institute. She earned her Bachelor of Arts (Economics) in 1964 and her Bachelor of Laws in 1968, both from the University of the Philippines.
After graduation from law school, she worked at the Atienza Tabora and Del Rosario Law offices. In 1971, she joined the DOJ as special assistant to Justice Secretary Vicente Abad Santos. It was after almost 12 years of work in the justice department that she joined the judiciary in 1983.
In 1983, she was appointed presiding judge of the Pili, Camarines Sur Regional Trial Court. Three years later, she was transferred to the Pasay Regional Trial Court.
In 1994, she was appointed to the Court of Appeals, and on Sept. 3, 2002, she was elevated as the 151st member of the Supreme Court.
President Benigno Aquino III appointed Morales as the new Ombudsman in July 2011.
Ombudsman employees also describe their boss as “feisty”—someone who tends to speak bluntly. They said Morales also tends to appear serious, but makes witty remarks and challenges questions posed before her.
She also appears to dislike being asked the same thing twice. During the agency’s indignation march against corruption last week, she noted that she was sounding like a “broken record” when she was asked about the purpose of the activity the second time.