A member of the Sandiganbayan, a public lawyer and six justices of the Court of Appeals are among 14 nominees for the next vacancy in the Supreme Court.
The names were submitted to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) as possible successor of Associate Justice Jose Perez, who will retire.
The seven-member JBC, which set the deadline for the submission of nominations and applications on Sept. 20, will review the qualifications of the candidates. Public interviews of the candidates will then be held before JBC comes up with a shortlist from which President Duterte would choose Perez’s successor.
Among those in the list are: Associate Justice Samuel Martires Jr., a tough-talking member of the antigraft court who threw out the petition for bail of lawyer Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s former aide who was also charged with plunder in
the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam.
His colleague, Associate Justice Alex Quiroz of the antigraft court’s Second Division, has also been nominated along with Regional Trial Court Judges Rowena Apao-Adlawan and Reynaldo Daway, and Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras. —Marlon Ramos