Finally, Azcuna makes it to SC

President Arroyo has appointed law professor and former Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Adolfo Azcuna as associate justice of the Supreme Court (SC).

The President signed Azcuna’s appointment papers on Oct. 17, a day after the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) chaired by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. submitted to her a short list of five candidates to fill the vacancy in the 15-member High Tribunal following the retirement of Associate Justice Santiago Kapunan.

Under the 1987 Constitution, any vacancy in the SC must be filled within 90 days — in Kapunan’s case, by Nov. 10.

Mrs. Arroyo earlier said she picked the candidate "who tops" the JBC list. In this case, Azcuna placed second, getting six votes from members of the JBC, over three other nominees - all justices from the Court of Appeals (CA) - who tied for the top slot with seven votes each.

The three nominees who tied for first place were CA Presiding Justice Cancio Garcia, CA Justice Delilah Vidallon-Magtolis, and Court Administrator Presbitero Velasco. The fourth nominee in the JBC shortlist was CA Senior Justice Ruben Reyes.

Azcuna had slid down from the No. 1 slot in a shortlist drawn up by the SC. Asked why Azcuna’s name slid down to second in the JBC short list, Justice Secretary Hernando Perez told reporters: "Actually, it’s the vote of the JBC that counts."

The JBC is the panel that screens aspirants to the judiciary and has the final say on which candidates to recommend to the President.

Azcuna was twice considered for past vacancies at the SC but failed to garner the required votes. He was supposed to have filled either of the slots vacated by justices Jose Melo and Sabino de Leon, who retired last May 28 and June 9, respectively.

In a luncheon with Palace reporters last Aug. 28, Mrs. Arroyo did not keep secret her desire to appoint Azcuna to the SC, saying she would have wanted him in the short list, had he been chosen to succeed the retirees.

"I certainly would wish that he was in the list. I would have wanted him to be in the list," she was quoted as saying, prompting the issue of her alleged personal intervention to persuade the JBC, an independent body, to modify its shortlist to include Azcuna.

The slots, however, were given to two JBC short list topnotchers, former CA justices Romeo Callejo and Conchita Carpio-Morales.

Azcuna was supposedly the strongest contender for the slot vacated by Melo had it not been for the vehement opposition raised by former Senate president Jovito Salonga and former justice minister Sedfrey Ordoñez.

Salonga and Ordoñez, officials of Bantay Karunungan (Sentinel of Justice), an anti-graft watchdog group monitoring corruption in the judiciary, said Azcuna acted as lawyer for Benjamin "Kokoy" Romualdez, brother of former First Lady Imelda Marcos.

Aside from being chief presidential legal counsel to former President Corazon Aquino from 1987 to 1990, Azcuna was also her presidential spokesman for sometime. He was once officer-in-charge of the Presidential Commission on Good Government.

Azcuna is a law graduate from Ateneo and, after working in government during the Aquino administration, has since engaged in private practice and teaching law at the Ateneo. Then President Aquino first appointed Azcuna in 1986 as a member of the Constitutional Commission which drafted the country’s present Charter. — Marichu Villanueva, Delon Porcalla