BY REY G. PANALIGAN
The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) has opened the application or nomination to a Supreme Court (SC) associate justice post which was vacated last November 3 with the disability retirement of Associate Justice Priscilla J. Baltazar Padilla.
In an announcement, the JBC – the constitutional office that nominates appointments in the judiciary – will also accept applications or nominations to judgeship posts in the family courts and a post in the Legal Education Board (LEB) for the ranks of active law practitioners.
Also, the council announced that it will soon conduct public interviews for those who applied and were recommended to six posts in the Court of Appeals (CA), one in the Sandiganbayan, two in the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA), LEB chairperson, and LEB member representing the law students’ sector. Their names were not included in the announcement.
The SC did not disclose the reason or reasons for Justice Padilla’s disability retirement.
Padilla was plucked out of the Court of Appeals (CA) by President Duterte last July 16 as replacement to Associate Justice Andres B. Reyes Jr. who retired last May 11.
She started her judicial career in 1996 as metropolitan trial court judge in Manila and later as a regional trial court judge. She was appointed CA associate justice in 2006.
A graduate of the Lyceum of the Philippines, Associate Justice Padilla placed fifth in the 1984 bar examinations with a rating of 90.3 per cent. After passing the bar, she joined the law firm of Puno and Associates and, later in 1991, she formed a law office in partnership with her husband, Venancio Padilla.
She was a professor at the New Era University and the Universidad de Manila. She was also a pre-bar reviewer on Persons and Family Relations, Obligations and Contracts, and Remedial Law subjects.
The lady justice authored a book, Quick Reviewer on the Law on Marriage and Family Relations.
