The Supreme Court (SC) will now have a new head as President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Associate Justice Lucas Bersamin to become the next Chief Justice, according to Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra on Wednesday, November 28.
Bersamin will replace retired Chief Justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, who left her post in October after serving for less than two months.
Duterte picked Bersamin over acting Chief Justice Antonio Carpio, Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, and Andres Reyes, Jr., who also vied for the chief top magistrate post.
Bersamin, 69, started his career in the judiciary when he was appointed as presiding judge of the Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 96 in November 1986. He was then promoted to the Court of Appeals (CA) in March 2003 before he was appointed by former President and now House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the SC.
He earned his law degree at the University of the East (UE) in 1973 and landed in ninth place in the Bar Examinations given that same year with an average of 86.3%, according to the SC’s website.
In 2006, the magistrate was named as one of UE’s “60 Most Outstanding Alumni Awardees” and the university’s “Outstanding Alumnus in the Judiciary” in 2001.
Bersamin was among the eight justices who voted in favor of Solicitor General Jose Calida’s petition that sought to nullify the appointment of former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.
[READ: Supreme Court rules to oust Sereno]
Calida’s petition accused Sereno of failure to comply with all the requirements needed to be chief justice when she did not submit all of her Statements of Assets Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), the body that screens and shortlists applicants for judicial positions, including the chief justice.
Aside from this, Bersamin also voted in favor of the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the declaration and extension of martial law in Mindanao, and the arrest of opposition Senator Leila De Lima over drug-related charges.
Moreover, he wrote the high court’s ruling that acquitted Arroyo of plunder and the decision that allowed former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who is charged with plunder over the pork barrel corruption scandal, to post bail.
Bersamin, who is the third most senior magistrate at the high court, will be serving as chief justice until he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 on October 18, 2019.
The announcement came after the President on Tuesday night, November 27, announced that he had already chosen the new head of the judiciary; however, he declined to reveal the name of his latest appointee.
“I have appointed one already. I signed the appointment before I left Manila the other night,” Duterte said.
“The office will release the appointment, then you will see that there is the name there,” he added.
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