CJ Peralta wants teaching job

After hanging his robe next month, Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta is eyeing a teaching job.

Peralta is set to retire on his 69th birthday on 27 March, a year ahead of his retirement age following 12 years of service on the bench.

In his speech during the conferment of Doctor of Laws honoris causa at the Tarlac State University yesterday the chief magistrate expressed no regret in his stint in the judiciary.

His replacement will be chosen by President Rodrigo Duterte after the Judicial and Bar Council picked among the applicants to succeed him.

“I cannot help but look back at my life’s work and feel a more than a modest amount of pride. I will retire without regrets knowing that I did all that I could for the law, for the courts, and for the nation,” he quoted in his speech.

Peralta said he was looking forward to the world outside the SC “with the thought that at my age life is still full of possibilities, that include plans of returning to teaching.

“As early as now, I am planning to return to the teaching profession which holds a special place in my heart. It is my other lifelong passion, having been a professor and a Bar reviewer in several schools prior to my appointment to the Supreme Court. The value of education has always been inculcated in me,” he said.

Peralta a native of Laoag and University of Santo Tomas law alumnus started out as a public prosecutor in 1987 then went on to become a trial court judge in September 1994, an associate justice and later the presiding justice of the Sandiganbayan, before he was appointed to the SC in January 2009.

He was appointed by President Duterte to as Chief Justice of the SC in October 2019 replacing chief Justice Lucas Bersamin, also an Ilocano.