"President Arroyo has appointed Artemio Panganiban as the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court," said Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye in a short text message to Palace reporters.
The announcement ended weeks of speculation over who would succeed Davide, with the candidates narrowed down to three — Panganiban and Senior Associate Justices Reynato Puno and Leonardo Quisumbing.
Puno was the most senior of the justices under consideration and tradition would have placed him as the next Chief Justice. The last time such a tradition was broken was during the time of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
Panganiban received the news about his appointment while hosting a thank-you dinner at the Pan Pacific Hotel in Malate, Manila for all those who assisted the SC in the successful holding of the International Judicial Conference more than two weeks ago in Manila.
Midway through the dinner, the master of ceremonies announced Panganiban’s appointment, and the audience heartily applauded and gave him a standing ovation.
Davide, in his closing remarks, presented Panganiban as the new Chief Justice.
The usually articulate Panganiban suddenly became tongue-tied when pressed by The STAR to comment on his appointment.
"Huwag muna ngayon (Not now. Perhaps later)," he said in a telephone interview.
Earlier yesterday, Palace sources named Panganiban as Davide’s successor. Other sources also said Mrs. Arroyo talked to Puno but did not say what was discussed.
Vice President Noli de Castro welcomed the President’s choice of Panganiban as the new chief justice even as he exhorted Puno not to lose heart over being bypassed.
"Perhaps Justice Puno can still wait for his turn because anyway his retirement is still far in the future," he told The STAR after attending the wake of National Bureau of Investigation director Reynaldo Wycoco at Camp Crame in Quezon City.
De Castro arrived at the wake minutes after Mrs. Arroyo left.
Revolving-door policy?
Panganiban, 69, will serve for only one year as SC justices have a mandatory retirement age of 70. His term would thus end on Dec. 7, 2006.
Puno, who reportedly has the support of the influential Iglesia ni Cristo, the Methodist Church and Bro. Mike Velarde of the Catholic charismatic group El Shaddai, was appointed to the SC in 1992 and will retire in May 2010.
Quisumbing is expected to retire on Nov. 6, 2009, prompting speculation that the President is paving the way for a "revolving-door" policy at the SC.
Panganiban is reportedly supported by the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines and businessmen. He was appointed justice of the 15-member high tribunal in 1995.
Panganiban is the concurrent chairman of the SC’s third division and the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET), as well as of seven SC committees involved mainly in judicial reforms.
He was described by fellow SC Justice Antonio Carpio as "undoubtedly the most prolific writer of the (Supreme) Court, bar none," referring to the over 10,000 full-length decisions, 10 books and several thousand minute resolutions Panganiban has penned during the last 10 years.
Panganiban has written the ponencia in several sensitive SC decisions such as the denial of former Manila congressman Mark Jimenez’s bid to post bail during the pendency of his extradition case, holding that an extradition case is not one in which the constitutional right of the accused is necessarily available.
He voted in a ruling against detained former Zamboanga congressman Romeo Jalosjos’ claim that reelection to public office gives priority to any other right or interest, holding that the performance of legitimate and even essential duties by public officers has never been a valid excuse to free a person from prison.
On the controversial expanded value-added tax, Panganiban voted for the issuance of a temporary restraining order to enjoin its implementation. Panganiban also concurred with the majority in
upholding the constitutionality of EVAT, but at the same time voted to declare some of its provisions unconstitutional.
He also penned the decision junking the multimillion-peso contract entered by the Commission on Elections with the Mega Pacific Consortium to computerize the May 2004 elections and a ruling
allowing the holding of exit polls and the dissemination of their results through mass media.
Among the landmark decisions penned by Panganiban are the ruling that declared Republic Act 7942 or the Mining Act of 1995 as unconstitutional and the financial and technical assistance agreement between the government and mining companies.
Panganiban’s ponencia in this case was the reiteration of his dissent in the main decision dated Jan. 27, 2004.
He also joined the ponencia in the case dismissing the election protest of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. against Mrs. Arroyo on the grounds that no real party in interest had come forward within the reasonable period allowed by law to intervene in the case. Poe’s widow, actress Susan Roces, went on with the protest even after he died in December last year.
Last March, Panganiban supported a ruling upholding Poe’s Filipino citizenship.
A popular campus figure, he was, among other feats, a founder and past president of the National Union of Students of the Philippines, and past president of the FEU Central Student Organization.
He graduated with honors from Juan Luna Elementary School and Mapa High School, both public schools.
"To support his studies, he hawked newspapers, peddled cigarettes and shined shoes in the streets of Sampaloc in Manila. During his college days, he sold textbooks to his classmates and bibles to his professors and university officials," the SC said in its profile of Panganiban.
After three years as an assistant in the law office of his mentor, former Senate president Jovito Salonga, he formed his own law firm of Panganiban, Benitez, Parlade, Africa and Barinaga, which he headed until he joined the SC. The law firm has since been dissolved.
Panganiban also taught law in three schools. He has been, among other things, vice-president of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry; governor of the Management Association of the Philippines; president of the Philippine Daily Inquirer; and president of the Rotary Club of Manila. He was the only Filipino appointed by the late Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Council for the Laity from 1996 to 2001.
He is married to Elenita Panganiban, professor and former associate dean at the Asian Institute of Management, with whom he has five children who all hold graduate degrees from United States universities, including Harvard, Stanford, University of California, University of Chicago, University of Michigan and Boston University.
Gonzalez said it does not make much of a difference if the post is not immediately filled "because the most senior justice will temporarily take over and besides the SC is on vacation. I know she has made up her mind already."
Meanwhile, Senate President Franklin Drilon urged the President to make her choice for chief justice known before the end of the year in order to bring about the swift resolution of at least two critical cases pending before the SC.
Drilon said while "technically the President has 90 days under the Constitution to appoint the chief justice," it would be ideal for the President to name the next appointee before the end of the year.
He noted that the SC has to immediately resolve at least two petitions that are of extreme importance to the country: one questioning the constitutionality of Executive Order No. 464, and another challenging the legality of Malacañang’s calibrated preemptive response (CPR) policy in dealing with street protests.
EO 464 requires all officials to secure the President’s approval before they can attend any congressional inquiries. Mrs. Arroyo issued this order after the Senate continued to investigate controversies allegedly involving her and her family even after the House of Representatives junked three impeachment complaints against her.
Senators have criticized EO 464 for adversely affecting the chamber’s investigations in aid of legislation.
Drilon said the challenge to the incoming chief justice "is to be able to show that the Supreme Court is indeed an independent institution that will rule simply on the basis of the Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution." — With Jose Rodel Clapano