Former PCGG chief and CA Associate Justice Magdangal B. Elma passes away

Veteran lawyer and former Associate Justice Magdangal Elma, who served in the government under several administrations, passed away on Sunday, October 19, 2025, at the age of 86.

Elma served as Presidential Assistant for Legal and Judicial Affairs and Acting Executive Secretary of the late President Corazon “Cory” Aquino.

He was also chairman of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and chief presidential legal counsel under former President Joseph Ejercito Estrada, and the Presidential Assistant for Special Concerns of the late President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. He was also an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals.

Details of the wake and the burial are set to be released by the family.

Elma was among the name partners of the Belo Gozon Elma Parel Asuncion & Lucila Law Offices, along with GMA Network chairman Felipe L. Gozon as well as Roberto Parel, Gener Asuncion, Roberto Rafael Lucila, and the late Enrique Belo.

Born in Lucban, Quezon on January 2, 1939, Elma received his bachelor’s and law degree from the University of the Philippines, both cum laude, and obtained his Master of Laws from the Yale Law School in 1962.

He served as editor-in-chief of the Philippinesian in 1961, was vice-chairman of the editorial board of the Philippine Law Journal from 1960 to 1961, and was vice-chairman of the editorial board of the Law Register from 1959 to 1960. He was also a member of the Order of the Purple Feather of the UP Law Honor Society from 1957 to 1961.

Elma was the first Filipino editor of The Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, and authored “The Aquino Presidency and the Constitution.”

He was a professorial and special lecturer at the UP College of Law, a member of the Board of Editorial Consultants of the Supreme Court, and a member of the board of several corporations including PLDT Inc. and the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC).

Elma received citations from Presidents Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Estrada, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as well as from the Departments of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Quezon Province, and the Municipality of Lucban. — Jon Viktor D. Cabuenas/BM, GMA Integrated News