(Eagle News) — Fellow Supreme Court justices honored retiring Chief Justice Teresita Leonardo De Castro on Friday, crediting her for having restored collegiality, as well as “dignity and harmony” in the high court.
The high court held a special en banc session honoring De Castro, the 24th Supreme Court Chief Justice of the country on Friday, three days before she officially reaches her mandatory retirement age of 70 on Monday, October 8, her birthday.
Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio awarded the plaque of appreciation to De Castro on behalf of the other magistrates of the Supreme Court.
“Chief Justice Tess helped restore dignity and harmony in the Supreme Court,” noted Carpio on Friday.
Associate Justice Noel Tijam said De Castro “may retire comforted that you have served your purpose and served well.”
De Castro is considered the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after Maria Lourdes Sereno was ousted as Chief Justice in quo warranto proceedings that declared her 2012 appointment as “void ab initio” on May 11, with majority of her fellow justices voting in favor of the quo warranto petition filed by Solicitor General Jose Calida.
Last Friday, De Castro was also awarded the Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos Award and Statuette of Judicial Excellence.
Her official portrait was also unveiled during the ceremony. This portrait will be displaced in the halls of the Supreme Court to be placed alongside the 23 other Supreme Court chief justices that had served the country.
Among those who attended Friday’s ceremony at the Supreme Court honoring De Castro were former President Gloria Arroyo who first appointed her as associate justice in December 2007; former Chief Justices Artemio Panganiban and Hilario Davide, Jr.; other retired magistrates; Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, as well as justices of the Sandiganbayan, Court of Appeals and Court of Tax Appeals.
Diplomats, retired and incumbent judges, court officials and employees, aside from the guests and friends of the retiring chief justice also attended the program.
-“Seniority is sacrosanct,” says De Castro-
In her retirement message, De Castro said that in her 45-year career in the government service, “there are incidents in our lives that are blessings in disguise.”
“My promotion to the position of Chief Justice is totally unplanned and neither by human design,” the retiring Chief Justice stressed as she pondered on her career in government service where for 41 days she served as the nation’s top magistrate.
“Seniority is sacrosanct in a collegial court,” she said, in apparent reference to how this seniority principle had been relegated to the background when former President Benigno Aquino III appointed Sereno as Chief Justice in 2012.
De Castro said “people outside the judiciary have misunderstood the issues that beset the court.”
She said the tribunal and its magistrates had been “unfairly maligned.”
Having rose from the ranks, De Castro said she wanted to ensure that the need and rights of court employees are valued.
She said that many court employees were previously demoralized “by inaction in the promotion” and for the previous failure to observe “standard rules and best practices in filling up positions.”
De Castro first served as a lawyer in the Supreme Court for five years, starting out as a law clerk and legal and judicial assistant in the high court from 1973 to 1978. She was then appointed as Department of Justice State Counsel in 1978 and later promoted to senior state counsel (1985-1987), supervising state counsel and chief of the legal staff (1988-1989), and
State Counsel V and Legal Staff head from 1989 to 1995, thus serving in the DOJ for 19 years.
She was then promoted to the Sandiganbayan in 1997 and eventually became presiding justice of the Sandiganbayan in 2004, until 2007 when she was appointed to the high court as Associate Justice by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
She has thus been a justice of the Supreme Court since 2007, and is the second most senior associate justice after Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, who had earlier declined to be nominated as the next Chief Justice.
-Time-honored tradition of seniority upheld-
After De Castro was appointed on August 25, 2018 by President Duterte, she thanked him for “upholding the time honored tradition of seniority in the Supreme Court.” She assumed office as head of the high court on August 28.
“Seniority is important because one who is senior will have a vast experience as to the workings of the Court. It is expected that the senior members of the Court will have the respect of the rest of the Court,” she said on her first day in office as Supreme Court chief justice on August 28.
“We would like to express our appreciation that the president has that strong political will to see to it that the merit system which is the hallmark of public appointments in public service is followed, and upholding the time honored tradition of seniority in the Supreme Court.”
De Castro will be retiring as the 24th Supreme Court Chief Justice, and the first woman chief justice. She will also be the shortest tenured Chief Justice having served for only 43 days since she assumed office on August 28, and surpassing the record of former Chief Justice Pedro.
The late Chief Justice Yap only served for two and a half months from April 19, 1988 to June 30, 1988.
