P-Noy's first justice appointee at SC

President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III has until Aug. 17 to name the new associate justice of the Supreme Court (SC). This vacancy arose with the promotion of Associate Justice Renato Corona on May 17 as the new Chief Justice following the mandatory retirement of erstwhile Chief Justice Reynato Puno.

Thus, P-Noy has until Tuesday next week to meet the 90-day timeframe prescribed in our country’s Constitution as the period within which to fill the vacancy at the highest tribunal of the land. The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) has already submitted to the Office of the President on July 29 the “short list” of nominees from where P-Noy could pick his choice of the newest member of the SC.

The six nominees who made it to the JBC “short list” were Court of Appeals (CA) Justices Japar B. Dimaampao, Noel G. Tijam and Hakim S. Abdulwahid; former University of the Philippines College of Law dean Raul C. Pangalangan; Commission on Elections commissioner Rene V. Sarmiento; and Maria Lourdes A. Serano, executive director of the Asian Institute of Management.

Dimaampao topped the JBC “short list” with six votes, followed by Pangalangan and Tijam with five votes apiece. Abdulwahid and Sarmiento, and Serano obtained four votes each.

The JBC is the independent body tasked to screen all nominees in the judicial branch from the lower courts all the way to the SC. It is chaired no less by the SC Chief Justice. It has three ex-officio members who include one representative each from the Senate and the House of Representatives. They are Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero and Iloilo Rep. Neil Tupas Jr. Department of Justice Secretary Lilia de Lima is the third ex-officio member of the JBC. The regular members of the JBC include Atty. Jay Conrado-Castro representing the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), retired justice Regino Hermosisima, retired CA justice Aurora Lagman both representing the private sector. A representative from the academe is currently vacant in the eight-man JBC.

Nominees vetted by the JBC go through a tough screening process that includes facing the members in a panel to interview them while the whole proceeding is open to the public.

Whoever will be chosen will become the first appointee of P-Noy to the 15-man High Tribunal, 14 of whom were appointed by his immediate predecessor, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Thus, it was obviously no coincidence when I read an open letter that appeared in The STAR yesterday. It was addressed to P-Noy asking him to be careful with the choice of his first ever appointee to the SC. The letter was signed by former Occidental Mindoro Rep. Ricardo Quintos who singled out one of the six nominees as not worthy to be appointed to the High Tribunal.

It turns out that the nominees in the “short list” as submitted to P-Noy included one of the justices whose integrity has been questioned by the Quintos family before the JBC. This is Tijam who was one of the justices in the CA Fifth Division that has overturned the conviction of former Occidental Rep. Jose T. Villarosa as the alleged mastermind in the December 1997 killing of the two sons of Quintos.

Villarosa was convicted in 2006 by Quezon City regional trial court judge Theresa dela Torre-Yadao for the double murder of Paul and Michael Quintos based on the confessions of the alleged hired assassins who gunned down in cold blood the two young men. Villarosa appealed his conviction before the CA and his case went to Tijam’s Fifth Division. 

Based on the recommendation of former Solicitor General Antonio Nachura (who was formerly Lakas Congressman prior to this) the CA reversed the conviction of Villarosa. Two months later, Nachura moved on as Associate Justice at the SC. Another former member of the CA Fifth Division, Martin Villarama Jr., is also now an Associate Justice at the SC.

“Considering that this will be the President’s first appointment to the Supreme Court, we hope and pray that it will be someone of unblemished integrity…” Quintos wrote P-Noy. “It is in this light that we appeal to the President to disregard Justice Tijam’s nomination by the JBC to the lone vacancy in the Supreme Court and appoint from the five other names submitted,” Quintos urged.

Following the questioned CA ruling, Villarosa was released in March 2008 from the National Penitentiary in Muntinlupa City. That controversial CA ruling penned by Tijam is now pending before the Second Division of the SC that gave due course to the petition of the Quintos family to annul it. “In effect, the Second Division of the Supreme Court is carefully evaluating our petition and may even declare that Court of Appeals Justice Noel Tijam committed grave abuse of discretion in acquitting Mayor Jose Villarosa,” Quintos pointed out.

 While the Quintos petition was pending at the SC, Villarosa ran and won as mayor of San Jose in Occidental Mindoro in the last May 10 elections. Being elected into office will not prevent Villarosa from going to prison if ever the SC upholds Yadao’s conviction of Villarosa.

His equally controversial wife, Rep. Amelita Villarosa also won in her re-election bid. She is now on her third and last term in Congress. Rep. Villarosa prominently figured as one of the favorite traveling companions in the trips abroad of then President Arroyo. She took over as the Lakas-Kampi chairman from former Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro who resigned as party chieftain before the May 10 elections to concentrate on his presidential campaign. Along with Teodoro, who lost to his first cousin P-Noy, a number of other Arroyo administration candidates, including many of ex-Arroyo Cabinet officials who ran in the May 10 national elections were also badly beaten in their respective bids. 

Now that there is a new administration, the Quintos family counts on the declaration of P-Noy during his inaugural address in Luneta on June 30 when he reiterated a policy enunciated by his late mother, former President Corazon Aquino: “There can be no reconciliation without justice.”

Despite his age, the Quintos patriarch continues with his family’s quest for justice for the gruesome murders of his two sons. And the Quintos family is also mulling to bring his sons’ case before the Truth Commission of P-Noy where they believe they could secure true justice.