PNoy appoints DOJ chief as next SC justice

MANILA, Philippines - President Benigno S. Aquino III on Friday appointed Justice Secretary Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa as the 174th associate justice of the Supreme Court.

Caguioa, who replaced Leila de Lima as head of the Department of Justice last year, is replacing Associate Justice Martin Villarama Jr. who retired from the high court.

Just in: The 174th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines, Hon. Alfredo Benjamin S. Caguioa. pic.twitter.com/D9vXXDxlqM

— SC PIO (Official) (@SCPh_PIO) January 22, 2016

Caguioa took up economics and later law at the Ateneo, where he was a classmate and close friend of Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares and Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, among many others. He was also a former classmate of the president.

He was a senior partner of the Caguioa and Gatmaytan law office. Prior to passing the Bar in 1986, he obtained his law degree from the Ateneo de Manila law school in 1985, along with several members of the current Aquino administration.

He joined SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan in 1986 and was a partner there from 1994 until February 2007.

Caguioa went on leave for a year in 1987 to join his father - the late Court of Appeals justice Eduardo Caguioa – where he handled mostly appeal cases in the CA and the Supreme Court.

He was a professor at the colleges of law of Ateneo de Manila University and San Sebastian College, where he taught obligations and contracts, property, statutory construction and administrative law.

Caguioa has been cited as a leading Philippine lawyer in the Dispute Resolution field by Chambers & Partners in its 2010 and 2011 Asia-Pacific publications.

He specializes in litigation and arbitration, having done so for the last 25 years. He has devoted much of his career to civil and commercial litigation before courts and quasi-judicial bodies of all levels, and to arbitration before various arbitration bodies.

According to his law office’s website, Caguioa has also “actively practiced before the different levels of the prosecutorial system, and has acted as private prosecutor or defense counsel before the regular courts and the Sandiganbayan.”

He served as chief presidential legal counsel before replacing De Lima who had to resign to focus on her senatorial bid in the upcoming election.