By Rey Panaligan
Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Presbitero J. Velasco Jr. retires at midnight today after serving the judiciary for 20 years and sets a record in the SC’s history by disposing of all judicial and administrative cases assigned to him.
Justice Presbitero J. Velasco Jr.
(sc.judiciary.gov.ph / MANILA BULLETIN)
On August 8, Velasco turns 70, the mandatory retirement age for members of the judiciary.
SC justices will honor Justice Velasco in a retirement ceremony at the SC. Thereafter, a retirement dinner will be held at the historic landmark Manila Hotel.
Velasco finished his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science degree at the University of the Philippines where he also received his Bachelor of Laws degree at age 22 and ranked eighth in his class.
He placed sixth in the 1971 bar examinations with a weighted average rating of 89.85 percent.
Immediately, Velasco engaged in law practice for 20 years and became active in the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the mandatory association of lawyers, and the Philippine Jaycees. He was the 1987 IBP national president.
Before his top post in the IBP, he was its vice president for Luzon and president of its Cavite Chapter.
For 10 years, he served the IBP’s national committee on legal aid as member and later as chairman. His love for the legal aid program led him to author the SC’s Rule on Community Legal Aid Service (CLAS) requiring new lawyers to render pro bono service to indigents and the downtrodden.
Velasco was also president of the Quezon City “Capitol” Jaycees and the national executive vice president of the Philippine Jaycees in charge of Metro Manila. He also headed the Philippine Columbian Association and is a member of the Philippine Bar Association.
As IBP national president, he saved the IBP building and the lot from foreclosure by liquidating the P19-million arrearages with the Government Service Insurance System.
In 1993, Velasco decided to join the government service as member of the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), the constitutional body that accepts, screens, and nominates appointments in the judiciary and top posts in the Office of the Ombudsman. In 1995, he was appointed undersecretary of the Department of Justice.
Velasco joined the judiciary in 1998 as associate justice of the Court of Appeals (CA). Three years later, he was appointed court administrator in 2001.
On March 31, 2006, he was appointed SC associate justice by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Velasco was ranked third by seniority in the SC. He was the chair of the court’s third division, chair of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, and member of the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.
He was chair of the Manila Hall of Justice committee and the Manila Bay Advisory committee, among other committees in the SC.
Velasco was the chair of the 2016 bar examinations which produced a record of highest passing percentage based on a passing grade of 75 percent. Records showed that out of 6,344 bar examinees, a total of 3,747 passed the tests and became lawyers.
At the SC, he wrote more than 1,000 decisions, opinions, and resolutions whether signed or unsigned.
Among his landmark decisions are those in Hacienda Luisita Inc. vs Presidential Agrarian Reform Council, Coconut Producers Federation (Cocofed vs. Republic, and Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) vs Concerned Residents of Manila Bay.
In the Hacienda Luisita case, more than 4,330 hectares of the vast estate were distributed to 6,296 farmworker-beneficiaries. With each farmer given around 6,600 square meters to till, his lifelong dream of owning a piece of land was finally fulfilled and was finally emancipated from the “bondage of the soil”.
In the Cocofed case, more than P70 billion were remitted to the coffers of the national treasury for the benefit of the coconut farmers and the development of the coconut industry. Congress is now in the process of enacting a law that will lay down the program for the use of the coco levy funds.
Velasco’s decision in the MMDA case introduced for the first time in the Philippine legal system the “writ of continuing mandamus” or “continuing court interference” scheme to ensure that the dispositive directives set forth in the decision are implemented.
The decision in MMDA directed 10 government agencies to rehabilitate and restore Manila Bay to its former condition which will make it fit for swimming and other contact recreation and perpetually maintain the good water quality of the bay. Up until his retirement, Justice Velasco chaired the Manila Bay advisory committee which monitored and supervised the Implementation of the MMDA decision for more than nine years.
At the same time, the MMDA decision resulted in the formulation of the Rules of Procedure for Environmental Cases, which gained worldwide acknowledgement as the only existing one of its kind. The rules also established the environment protection writ, or Writ of Kalikasan, which allowed the SC to provide immediate relief to address damages to the environment without need to pay filing fees.
SC records and published reports showed that the Writ of Kalikasan proved useful in another environmental case – the West Tower Condominium Corp. vs. First Philippines Industrial Corp. In this case, Justice Velasco issued the writ with a Temporary Environmental Protection Order (TEPO) to enable the SC to monitor the remediation of the Barangay Bangkal area in Makati that was affected by a leak from an oil pipeline.
The TEPO prompted the private company to institute immediate repairs and remediation measures to avert possible loss of lives and property in the area. The SC also closely monitored the activities through the periodic reports submitted by the private operators of the oil pipeline.
It was not only Justice Velasco who served and is serving the Filipinos as the desire to serve runs in the Velasco family. With Velasco in the judiciary, his wife and three children are all currently active in the two other branches of government – the executive and the legislative.
His wife, Lorna Quinto-Velasco, who once served as representative in Congress of Ang Mata’y Alagaan (MATA), is now the mayor of Torrijos, Marinduque. The eldest child of the Velasco couple, Vincent Michael, formerly a businessman now serves as secretary to his mayor-mom. The second child, Lord Allan Jay, a lawyer, is the incumbent Representative of the lone district of Marinduque. And the third child, Tricia Nicole Velasco-Catera, also a lawyer, is now the congresswoman representing MATA in the House of Representatives.
The introduction to his legacy book, “Justice: A Continuing Quest” states: “Justice Velasco unselfishly invested the best and precious years of his life in service of God and the Filipino people to carry out his life’s mission – to make our country a better place to live in and a life for our countrymen with better things to hope for.”
After his SC retirement, reports have it that residents of Marinduque are urging Velasco to “throw his hat in our province’s politics.”