Velasco named new SC associate justice

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye announced Friday the appointment of Presbitero Velasco Jr as the new associate justice of the Supreme Court, GMA 7's DZBB reported. Velasco is currently the SC administrator. He will take over the position vacated by former Associate Justice Artemio Panganiban, who succeeded former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) endorsed Velasco and three other candidates to President Arroyo. The other nominees were recently-appointed Solicitor General Eduardo Nachura, outgoing Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo, Sandiganbayan Presiding Justice Teresita de Castro and Court of Appeals (CA) Justice Roberto Barrios. Velasco landed sixth place in the 1971 bar examinations, with a score of 89.85%. He obtained his College of Law degree from the University of the Philippines at the age of 22. He completed his AB Political Science undergraduate course in only 3 years. Velasco was a former justice undersecretary, past president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and a former CA associate justice before being appointed SC administrator. The eight-man Judicial and Bar Council is an attached agency of the SC. It has the constitutional mandate of choosing nominees who will be officially endorsed to President Arroyo. The JBC, led by its ex-officio chairman Panganiban, consists of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, Senate majority leader Francis Pangilinan, Maguindanao Rep. Simeon Datumanong, and retired Sandiganbayan Justices Raoul Victorino, Regino Hermosisima Jr, Dean Amado Dimayuga, and Conrado Castro. Nachura, outgoing chief presidential legal adviser, will takeover the Office of the Solicitor General on April 1. Citing his desire to return to private practice, Benipayo filed his resignation shortly after the first oral arguments on the legality of President Arroyo's emergency rule proclamation.-GMANews.TV, with a report from inq7.net