Comelec commissioner nominated for Supreme Court justice post

MANILA, Philippines - Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rene Sarmiento and lawyer Katrina Legarda have joined 26 other candidates vying for the associate justice seat in the Supreme Court (SC) left by Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Court Administrator Midas Marquez, SC spokesman, said Sarmiento and Legarda, being first-time applicants, would have to undergo a public interview before the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC).

“If they have been interviewed within the year, they will no longer be interviewed,” he said.

“The interview will be only for those first time aspirants or those who’ve been interviewed a long time ago.”

Sarmiento was a human rights lawyer and member of the commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution.

He finished law in 1978 at the University of the Philippines and later became associate at the Jose Diokno law office, handling constitutional, criminal, civil and labor cases.

The 56-year-old Sarmiento also became consultant to the presidential committee on human rights in 1987 and a member of that committee from 1991 to 1994.

He became a member and later vice chairman of the government’s panel in talks with communist rebels.

He served as officer-in-charge of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process before being appointed Comelec commissioner.

Legarda is an expert in family law and advocate of the rights of women and children.

The 51-year-old lawyer was admitted to the Bar in 1981 after graduating from UP.

She is founding chair of the Child Justice League, a non-profit organization which gives free legal aid to abused children who are in conflict with the law.

She grew up in England where she finished a degree in History at the University of Bristol.

After passing the Bar, she joined the Angara, Abello, Concepcion, Regala, and Cruz Law firm (ACCRALAW) as an associate.

She defended the late STAR publisher Max Soliven and columnist Luis Beltran in the libel case filed by the late former President Corazon Aquino.

In 1997, she acted as lead counsel pro bono among three women lawyers of the 11-year-old victim in the Romeo Jalosjos statutory rape case, which they won.

Later, her defense of a woman sentenced to death for the alleged murder of her husband led to a landmark decision of the Supreme Court to accept “battered women syndrome” as a defense.

Legarda ran for senator in the 1992 elections as a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition party, but did not win.

In 1998, the women’s party-list organization Abanse! Pinay, of which she was founding president, won a seat in Congress.

Marquez said the JBC’s next step would be to publish the names of all 28 aspirants and invite public comments for or against any of them.

The period for the selection of the SC justice would lapse on Aug. 17, he added.

The other candidates are Court of Appeals Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr. and Associate Justices Hakim Abdulwahid, Estela Perlas Bernabe, Magdangal de Leon, Isaias Dicdican, Noel Tijam, Portia Hormachuelos, Rosmarie Carandang, Remedios Salazar-Fernando, Justice Lovell Bautista, and Mariflor Punzalan-Castillo; Sandiganbayan acting Presiding Justice Edilberto Sandoval Jr. and Associate Justice Francisco Villaruz Jr.; former UP Law Dean Raul Pangalangan; Ateneo Law Dean Cezar Villanueva; and UE Law Dean Amado Valdez. Ambassador Manuel Teehankee, son of the late Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee, also agreed to be nominated.