Aquino receives short list of CA nominees

MANILA, Philippines—The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) has named six judges, one of them the possible replacement for recently retired Court of Appeals Justice Amelita Tolentino, on a short list it forwarded to President Benigno Aquino III on Saturday.

The Court of Appeals. FILE PHOTO

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, the JBC chair, named the nominees for the vacancy left by the retirement of Tolentino on July 4 as Judges Jeoffre Acebido, Perpetua Atal-Paño, Geraldine Fiel-Macaraig, Germano Francisco Legaspi, Ronaldo Martin and Ruben Reynaldo Roxas, all assigned to various courts.

The President has 90 days to name a new associate justice of the Court of Appeals.

According to the JBC website, 30 nominees were initially considered.

Tolentino, who handed down the guilty verdicts in the high-profile Vizconde massacre case in January 2000 when she was a Parañaque City judge, was appointed to the Court of Appeals in 2001.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court clarified that Sereno, as JBC chair, was checking on—and not reviewing—the status of the case of dismissed Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Gregory Ong.

Sereno had told reporters in an interview last Wednesday that she was looking into whether or not Ong had filed an appeal to the Supreme Court’s Sept. 23 decision ordering his dismissal for links to Janet Lim-Napoles, the alleged brains of the P10-billion pork barrel scam.

In recent months, the judiciary has faced questions on the integrity of magistrates, as in the case of Ong, and of other judges under investigation for alleged ties to a “Ma’am Arlene,” who is accused of fixing cases for wealthy clients. Tarra Quismundo

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