Reyes bids SC goodbye in 1st virtual retirement rite

MANILA, Philippines — As everything goes digital due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Supreme Court (SC) justices, mostly seniors, celebrated the first virtual retirement ceremony of one of their colleagues. 

The SC on Friday said on its official twitter account @SCPh_PIO that Associate Justice Andres Reyes Jr. was given the first online retirement ceremony as he is set to retire tomorrow. He will turn 70. 

All 15 justices, clad in their formal attire, were present during the online celebration.

Reyes replaced Associate Justice Bienvenido Reyes when President Duterte appointed him to the high court on July 13, 2017.

Before entering the SC, he served at the Metropolitan Trial Court of Makati City. 

He also served at the Regional Trial Court of San Mateo, Rizal and was appointed magistrate of the Court of Appeals in 1999 and its presiding justice in 2010.  

Videoconferencing has played an important role in the judiciary since Metro Manila has been placed under enhanced community quarantine (ECQ) due to COVID-19, with the country having over 10,000 confirmed cases of the disease. 

The SC has allowed the resumption of raffling of cases in areas under ECQ through videoconferencing. 

It said raffling of cases will be regularly held at  2 p.m. on Mondays and/or Thursdays “as warranted by the number of the cases to be raffled.” 

The clerk of court will inform members of the raffle committee of the schedule of the raffle and “host” a committee meeting through the “teams application.”

The high court said the raffle of cases in eCourt stations will regularly proceed whether the subject station is in areas under ECQ or general community quarantine (GCQ). 

The SC said manual raffling of cases can be done “if, for any reason, the electronic raffle of cases in the eCourt station, which is in an area under ECQ, does not function.”