CA justice Rosario is new Supreme Court magistrate

Supreme Court Associate Justice Ricardo Rosario. (Photo from SC Public Information Office via PNA)

MANILA – President Rodrigo R. Duterte has appointed Court of Appeals Associate Justice Ricardo Rosario as a magistrate of the Supreme Court (SC).

Rosario’s appointment was signed by the President on Thursday and was made public on Friday. He replaced Associate Justice Jose Reyes Jr., who compulsorily retired from the service upon turning 70 on September 18.

Rosario, 62, was a former Quezon City prosecutor and served as a judge of the Manila Metropolitan Trial Court (MeTC) and the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC).

He obtained his law degree at the Ateneo Law School in 1983 and is a member of the Aquila Legis fraternity. He graduated with a degree in Political Science at the Far Eastern University in 1979.

A son of a lawyer and a policewoman, Rosario is married to Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Makati regional director Maridur Rosario with whom he has three children.

As a member of the CA’s 11th Division, Rosario last year ruled with other members of the tribunal, Nina Antonio-Valenzuela, and Perpetua Atal-Pano, to dismiss a suit filed by a militant group questioning the supposed moves of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to conduct surveillance and profiling on public and private school teachers.

In February last year, the appellate court dismissed the petition filed by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) as it cited shortcomings in the petition, including ACT’s failure to include certified true copies of the memorandum supposedly issued by the PNP’s intelligence units regarding the measure.