Guevarra figures in SC race anew

Department of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra was again nominated by retired Sandiganbayan Associate Justice Raoul Victorino to succeed Associate Justice Jose Reyes.

Reyes is to retire on 18 September.

Victorino nominated Guevarra to the SC last November for the vacant post following the appointment of then Associate Justice Diosdado Peralta as Chief Justice last 23 October.

The nomination was declined by Guevarra, saying that he was still “very much in love” with the DoJ.

Victorino has described Guvevarra as a man of justice.

“This time, I believe, is that he will meet his true love in the other part of Padre Faura, Manila. May his love for justice move the Secretary of Justice to the glorious and historic halls of the Supreme Court (SC),” Victorino said in his nomination letter to the Judicial and Bar Council.

The JBC last 23 May opened the applications of candidates for the post to be vacated by Justice Reyes.

Victorino has described Guvevarra as “a man of justice.”

“In my decades of public service until today, I have known the incumbent DoJ Secretary Guevarra as a dedicated public servant with an unblemished record,” Victorino told the JBC.

“I have known Secretary Guevarra to be a person of proven competence, integrity, probity and independence and his sense of patriotism through his socio-civic engagements. I believe that he possesses the necessary credentials, professional experience and the motivation to discharge the duties as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court,” he added.

Before he was appointed as Justice secretary, Guevarra served as an Office of the President Oversight Representative of Executive Secretary in several National Economic and Development Authority Cabinet-level committee.

He was also an accredited arbitrator of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry and a member of the Philippine legal team in the West Philippine Sea arbitration case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.