(Update) Peralta new Sandiganbayan presiding justice

MANILA, Philippines - President Gloria Arroyo has appointed Diosdado Peralta as new Sandiganbayan First Division presiding justice, Malacañang said Friday. Peralta took the post left vacant by Teresita de Castro, who was earlier named as associate justice of the Supreme Court by Arroyo. The President signed Friday Peralta’s appointment, which was transmitted by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno on the same day. Ermita said Peralta was nominated by the Judicial and Bar Council. Peralta, like De Castro, was a member of the three-man Special Division of the Sandiganbayan that convicted former president Joseph Estrada of plunder. The former Quezon City judge was called “hanging judge" prior to his appointment to the Sandiganabyan. He sentenced to death more than 40 people when he was still regional trial court judge. He is a founding member of the “Guillotine Club" composed of judges advocating capital punishment. Peralta, is the son of former Manila Court of First Instance Judge Elviro, and is married to Court of Appeals associate justice Fernanda Lampas-Peralta. His father is reportedly a friend of the late President Diosdado Macapagal, after whom he was named. Peralta first worked as a production analyst of Cosmos Bottling Corporation in 1974 before moving up as general manager of Ace Agro-Development Corporation. In 1981 he became a legal consultant of the Metro Manila Commission and later served as a councilman in a village in Fairview in Quezon City. He was appointed as a member of the Task Force that looked into tax fraud cases against former First lady Imelda Marcos, of the Task Force on Tax Deficiency of the City of Manila and later of the Joint Legal Action Group of the Departments of National Defense, Justice and of Interior and Local Government before working as assistant city fiscal or prosecutor in Laoag City and later in Manila. Peralta then became a regional trial court judge in Quezon City in 1994 and executive judge in 2000 before being named as associate justice of the Sandiganbayan in 2002.- GMANews.TV