Carpio gets another nomination for chief justice post

MANILA, Philippines — Former Chief Justice Hilario Davide thinks that Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio will be the best candidate to be the country's next chief justice.

Davide, who served as the country’s top judge from 1998 to 2005, recommended Carpio to the chief justice post. Despite Carpio’s earlier pronouncement that he would decline the nomination, Davide urged the Judicial and Bar Council to consider the senior justice as candidate for the post.

“I pray that the JBC should not, in the highest interest of public service, give due course to the stand of [Carpio]. It should consider him a nominee of good standing despite and inspite of such stand,” Davide said.

The former chief justice also asked Carpio to “reconsider his stand.” Davide, in a separate message to reporters, said that the automatic nomination to the post "is a sound and wise policy."

“Delicadeza should no longer be invoked because the decision in the quo warranto case is final. It has become the law of the case,” Davide added.

As one of the five most senior justices of the high court, Carpio is automatically nominated to the post. While he has earlier said, in a TV interview, that he will decline the nomination, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines still filed their recommendation for Carpio to be the country's next top judge.

Carpio said that he has to be consistent with his position on the quo warranto ruling that ousted Maria Lourdes Sereno as the chief justice. “On a personal level, because I have voted against it, I don’t want to benefit from it, so I will decline any nomination,” he said.

But Davide implored Carpio: “The vacancy is real and lawful.”

He also added that Carpio is “not responsible” for the vacancy at the high court, which was brought about by the nullification of Maria Lourdes Sereno's appointment through a quo warranto petition.

“Personal consideration must now yield to the demands of public interest and of the good of the service. He should not deprive the President to have the opportunity for a wider field of choice for the best for the Supreme Court in particular and the Judiciary and the people in general,” Davide added.

The last two chief justices were ousted from their positions: former Chief Justice Renato Corona was ousted through an impeachment case, while Sereno’s appointment was deemed null through a voting by her peers at the SC on the government’s quo warranto petition against her.

The JBC officially opened the call for nominations for the chief justice post last June 25.

Others who are automatically nominated to the chief justice post are Associate Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita Leonardo-De Castro, Diosdado Peralta and Lucas Bersamin.

Velasco is due to retire on August 8, while De Castro will hang up her SC justice robes on October 8. — Kristine Joy Patag