MANILA, Philippines (Corrected 4:37 p.m.) — An assistant secretary of the Department of Justice has applied to become a judge of a metropolitan trial court judge in Metro Manila.
DOJ Assistant Secretary Neal Vincent Bainto is applying to be a metropolitan trial court judge in the National Capital Judicial Region, as shown by a Judicial and Bar Council announcement on Monday.
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Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said he is aware of Bainto’s potential career shift to the judiciary. “He has considered a possible career in the Judiciary a long time ago. No other reasons,” he told reporters.
Bainto told reporters that he applied for the post in February 2020. “I have no intention of leaving the DOJ any time soon and will consider the Judiciary post, if and when given the opportunity,” he added.
Should Bainto leave his post from the DOJ, this would follow the abrupt resignation of Undersecretary Markk Perete who quit last week.
The DOJ secretary said that he has since been distributing Perete’s tasks to other department officials, while he noted that Bainto’s application will still take some time for processing.
During his stint at the DOJ, Perete took part in the “Task Force PhilHealth” and the Administrative Order 35 task force that investigates politically-motivated killings, including the murder of peace consultant Randall Echanis and rights worker Zara Alvarez.
The justice department is also leading the inter-agency panel reviewing drug war operations that resulted in deaths, and a report is due to be released next month.
Bainto meanwhile serves as deputy spokesperson for the department.
Guevarra remains confident that the DOJ’s operations will remain unaffected. “The DOJ is a robust and resilient organization. It has gone through a lot of bumps and shocks, as you all know. But I’d like to believe that it has become tougher after going through these times,” he added. — Kristine Joy Patag
(Editor's note: This article has been corrected to reflect that Bainto has only applied for the post and has not been appointed. An earlier version incorrectly reported that he had been appointed and is leaving the Department of Justice. We regret the error.)