Judge in Maguindanao massacre case nominated to fill CA seat

Quezon City Regional Trial Court Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes has been nominated for promotion to the Court of Appeals, according to a document from the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC).

Solis-Reyes is among the 36 applicants who were nominated by the JBC to President Rodrigo Duterte for one of the six vacancies in the appellate court.

Senior Deputy Executive Secretary Michael Ong, other judges and former JBC member Milagros Cayosa also made it to the shortlist.

The vacancies occurred following the promotion of former CA justices Rodil Zalameda, Edgardo Delos Santos, Mario Lopez, and Samuel Gaerlan to the Supreme Court and the retirement of CA magistrates Luisa Padilla and Jane Aurora Lantion.

In December 2019, Solis-Reyes declared several members of the influential Ampatuan clan guilty of multiple murder for the Maguindanao massacre in 2009.

Along with police officers and other personalities, they were sentenced to reclusion perpetua, or up to 40 years of imprisonment, without parole.

The massacre on November 23, 2009 claimed the lives of 58 people, including 32 journalists who were accompanying the wife of then-Buluan, Maguindanao vice mayor Esmael Mangudadatu and his supporters in filing his certificate of candidacy for governor.

Mangudadatu was then about to go against Andal Ampatuan Jr. in the 2010 gubernatorial race.

A former prosecutor and public attorney, Solis-Reyes has been the presiding judge of the Quezon City RTC Branch 221 since 2004.

The JBC also forwarded to the Office of the President the names of eight individuals vying to replace the late Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Reynaldo Cruz.

Fifteen individuals, meanwhile, were nominated to fill two positions in the Court of Tax Appeals.

Headed by Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta, the seven-member JBC screens applicants for any vacancy in the judiciary and the Offices of the Ombudsman and Deputy Ombudsman.—AOL, GMA News