Nachura chosen as new SC justice, Puno says

Solicitor General Antonio Eduardo Nachura, who served as the administration's lawyer on some of its most controversial proclamations, is the new associate justice of the Supreme Court, dzBB radio said.

Interviewed by reporters at the Vin D'Honneur in Malacañang, Chief Justice Reynato Puno said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told him that Nachura was her choice as the 15th justice to the high bench. Agnes Devanadera, currently head of the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel, will takeover Nachura's post, the radio report said. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita refused to comment on the appointments, saying he has yet receive information on the matter. Nachura was named solicitor general in March 17, 2006, replacing Alfredo Benipayo who resigned from his post as the government’s chief legal defender. Nachura had became chief presidential legal counsel on February 6 last year, crafted a controversial presidential directives and served as Malacanang defender in various cases. As chief presidential legal counsel, he authored the controversial Presidential Proclamation 1017, which placed the country under a state of national emergency on February 24 following an alleged coup attempt by combined forces of left-leaning groups, the political opposition and disgruntled military members. During his term, he defended government on the issuance of Executive Order 464, which banned senior executive officials from attending congressional hearings without the permission of President Arroyo. He also argued in favor of the calibrated preemptive response (CPR) policy which was also questioned before the Supreme Court during the tenure of former SC Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban. Nachura, who taught constitutional law, likewise lawyered for the Sigaw ng Bayan and the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) when they elevated to the high court the controversial people’s initiative as a mode to introduce amendments to the 1987 Constitution. The Supreme Court, in all four cases, ruled against government. Ironically, when Nachura was congressman, he also sponsored a bill aimed at amending Republic Act 6735 or the Initiative and Referendum Act to correct what the Supreme Court said then were insufficiencies of the people’s initiative law. The measure gathered dust in the House of Representatives’ Archives. His name was repeatedly floated as President Arroyo’s favored candidate among the five names submitted by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) as nominees for the 15th SC justice. Another reported favorite of the President was Government Corporate Counsel Agnes Devanadera. Eventually, Devanadera - according to SC Chief Justice Reynato Puno - was named as replacement of Nachura as solicitor general. Devanadera, as national president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) during the last three years of the Ramos administration (1995 to 1998), actively campaigned for constitutional amendments. She led local executives in 1997 in gathering signatures for PIRMA (People’s Initiative for Reform, Modernization and Action), which vigorously pushed for the lifting of term limits on local officials. Devanadera, a student of former justice secretary Hernando Perez at the Ateneo de Manila University, in 2003 served as spokesperson for Perez in the libel suit he filed against former Bulacan Rep. Wilfrido Villarama and former Manila Rep. Mark Jimenez over allegations that he extorted $2 million from Jimenez. She was appointed government corporate counsel in September 2004, where she became controversial for allegedly locking of the office of her subordinate, assistant government corporate counsel Efren Gonzales, in September 2005 amid a Senate hearing on the Northrail project where he testified. - GMANews.TV