JBC to name nominees for top SC post once they’ve accepted nomination

Senator Francis Escudero. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) has decided not to release in public the names of nominees for the Chief Justice post unless the nomination has been accepted, Senator Francis Escudero, an ex-officio member of the JBC said Monday.

Currently, there are already 65 nominees for the Chief Justice post but only 13 nominees have accepted their nomination while 11 nominees have declined.

“Paano kung biro o loko lang yung nomination? Kaya hindi namin nilabas yung names unless accepted (What if the nomination was a prank or a joke? This is why we did not release the names of nominees unless they’ve accepted),” Escudero said.

High Court acting spokesperson attorney Gleo Guerra added that “those recommendees are not considered official candidates per JBC rules. In fact, there are recommendees who didn’t know that they were being recommended so the JBC thought it best to keep the names of nominees with no conformity or those who have declined off the list.”

With no restriction on how the nominations are to be submitted to the JBC, nominations for the Chief Justice post kept pouring in with one week more before the deadline.

One nominee was nominated by a certain Egay Bigay through an email sent to the JBC while one lawyer submitted 8 nominations including several Supreme Court justices who have not been nominated as well as the Presiding Justices of the Court of Appeals and Sandiganbayan. A certain Leonardo Da Vinci has nominated a retiring Court of Appeals Justice and a certain batch325 nominated a retired Justice of the Court of Appeals who is already 10 years past the mandatory retirement age.

Two justices and a judge have declined their nomination and requested that their names be stricken off even from the list of nominees. One of the three said he was not consulted about the nomination.