The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) is expected to decide on Tuesday, Sept. 5, who among the seven aspirants to the post of Court of Appeals (CA) presiding justice will be nominated for submission to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for appointment.

The post of CA presiding justice became vacant last Sept. 2 with the mandatory retirement of Presiding Justice Remedios A. Salazar Fernando.

Associate Justice Fernanda Lampas Peralta, the most senior CA justice, assumed the post of acting presiding justice pending appointment by President Marcos of Fernando’s replacement from the list to be submitted by the JBC, the constitutional office that accepts, screens and nominates appointments in the judiciary.

Aside from Peralta, the other aspirants to the post are, in alphabetical order, CA Associate Justices Nina G. Antonio-Valenzuela, Ramon M. Bato Jr., Apolinario D. Bruselas Jr., Mariflor P. Castillo, Marlene B. Gonzales-Sison, and Edwin D. Sorongon.

The JBC had also conducted public interviews of the aspirants.

Under the Constitution, the President has to appoint a replacement within 90 days from the date of the vacancy.

Justice Peralta has been a CA associate justice since 2004 after serving the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), the government’s law firm, for 17 years.

Also a certified public accountant, Peralta finished her business administration degree from the University of the East and her law degree from San Beda College.

She took the Bar exams in 1985 with a rating of 86.40 percent.  She is the wife of former Chief Justice Diosdado M. Peralta.

Justice Valenzuela finisher her law degree from the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City.  She completed her master of laws degree, without thesis, at the Philippine Judicial Academy-San Beda College of Law Consortium.

She worked as technical assistant at the Supreme Court (SC) and later as chief legislative staff officer of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal.

She was a metropolitan trial court (MeTC) judge and later a regional trial court (RTC) judge, both in Manila.  She was appointed CA associate justice in 2010.

Justice Bato was appointed CA associate justice in 2004.  He was a judge of both the municipal trial court (MTC) and the RTC. He finished his law degree from the Silliman University in 1982 and passed the Bar examinations in 1983.

He worked at the SC as a court attorney and co-founded and organized the SC Assembly of Lawyer Employees (SCALE).

He was also a law professor at De La Salle University and Silliman Univesity and handled subjects like Legal Environment and Partnership and Corporation, and Remedial Law.

Justice Bruselas was in active military service at the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Judge Advocate General’s Service before his transfer to the Department of Justice (DOJ) as a prosecutor in Makati City.

He was a judge of the RTC in Quezon City.  For his eight years of exemplary service as a trial court judge, Bruselas was bestowed the Judicial Excellence Award by the SC and the Foundation for Judicial Excellence.

He finished his economics and law degrees at UP in Quezon City.  He served twice as Bar examiner on Criminal Law and Remedial Law.  He was appointed CA associate justice in 2005.

Justice Castillo was an investigator at the then Tanodbayan, now Office of the Ombusman (OMB), and later as OMB prosecutor for four years before her appointment as MeTC and RTC judge in Quezon City.

In 1999, she was proclaimed “Most Outstanding Metropolitan Trial Court Judge” by the Foundation for Judicial Excellence.

She finished her law degree from UP in 1978 and passed the Bar examinations in 1979 with a rating of 87.45 per cent.  She also completed the Basic Evidence Course in the National Judicial College of the University of Nevada in the United States. She was appointed CA associate justice in 2004.

Justice Sison was appointed CA associate justice in 2005.  Before her CA stint, she was judge of both the MeTC and the RTC in Quezon City.

She was also an academician having been a law professor at the Universidad de Manila College of Law, the Philippine Christian University, and the New Era University.

In 2005 before her appointment to the CA, Justice Sison was named Outstanding Judge of the Philippines, and in 2007 as Outstanding Justice of the CA.

Justice Sorongon was appointed CA justice in 2009. After private practice of law, he was appointed prosecutor and later as RTC judge.

In 2007 as a RTC judge, he was among the judges who participated in the Hague forum for crimes cognizable by the International Criminal Court (ICC).  

He finished his bachelor of arts degree at the West Visayas State University and his law degree at the University of San Agustin. After passing the Bar examinations in 1980, he engaged in private practice of law until his appointment as assistant provincial prosecutor of Iloilo.