Five candidates for Supreme Court chief justice: Who are they?
MANILA — The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) submitted on Thursday to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. its shortlist of candidates for the next chief justice, ahead of the retirement of incumbent Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo.
Gesmundo, who became the country’s 27th chief justice on April 5, 2021, will retire on November 6 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70. In anticipation of his retirement, the JBC opened the application for the top magistrate post on August 28.
Under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the chief justice is the highest-ranking official in the judiciary and leads the Supreme Court, the country’s highest court. The chief justice also chairs the JBC and designates three Supreme Court Justices to each Electoral Tribunal of the House of Representatives and Senate.
According to the Constitution, any member of the Supreme Court must be a natural-born Filipino citizen, at least 40 years old, and must have been a judge of a lower court or practiced law in the Philippines for at least 15 years.
The JBC is tasked to screen and nominate candidates for the President’s consideration. After JBC’s deliberations, it submits a shortlist of three to seven nominees, unless a tie results in additional candidates, from which the President selects who to appoint. To be included in JBC’s shortlist, a candidate must obtain at least four affirmative votes from JBC members.
The JBC shortlisted five nominees for the chief justice post: Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda, Associate Justice Japar Dimaampao, and Associate Justice Jose Midas Marquez.
Leonen, Caguioa, and Zalameda were among the Supreme Court’s five most senior associate justices invited by the JBC to apply for the position. Supreme Court spokesperson Camille Ting said the practice has been observed since the early 2000s as a courtesy extended to the Court’s most senior members.
Among the nominees, Leonen and Caguioa were appointed by former President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, while Zalameda, Dimaampao, and Marquez were appointed by former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Here are brief profiles of the five nominees:
Leonen, 63, was appointed as a Supreme Court associate justice on November 21, 2012. He became the Court’s senior associate justice on May 14, 2022, following the retirement of Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe.
With Gesmundo set to retire, Leonen is poised to serve as acting chief justice while the position remains vacant. According to Ting, the Judiciary Act of 1948 provides that the most senior associate justice shall exercise the powers and duties of the chief justice during a vacancy.
In an interview on the show “Senior Moments with Louie Montalbo,” Leonen said that was exposed to the legal profession at an early age as his father was a lawyer. His mother, meanwhile, served as chief pharmacist at the Baguio Health Center.
Born in Baguio City, Leonen completed his secondary education at Saint Louis Boy’s High School before moving to Manila at age 16 for college.
According to his profile in the Supreme Court website, Leonen graduated magna cum laude with a degree in economics from the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman in 1983. He later earned his law degree in the same university in 1987 and joined the Philippine Bar a year later.
In 2004, he obtained a Master of Laws degree from Columbia Law School in Columbia University, New York. He also received honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from University of Cebu in 2022 and Saint Louis University in 2026.
Before joining the Supreme Court, he worked as a law professor, legal advocate, and public servant. In 1987, he co-founded the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center and served as its executive director for 15 years. He started teaching in UP Diliman in 1989 and held key posts, including the Director of Office of Legal Aid in 1998, General Counsel in 2000, Vice President for Legal Affairs in 2004, and the dean of the College of Law in 2008.
In 2010, Aquino tapped Leonen to head the Philippine government’s peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The negotiations led to the framework agreement on the Bangsamoro signed in 2012.
Leonen wrote the High Court’s decision in the Falcis III v. Civil Registrar General case which challenged the Philippines’ ban on same-sex marriage. While the petition was dismissed, the ruling affirmed the constitutional rights of LGBTQ+ Filipinos and denounced discrimination based on sexual orientation.
He also wrote a dissenting opinion opposing the burial of the incumbent president’s father, dictator and former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. He said that his burial is in violation of Republic Act No. 10368 or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013.
In 2020, then-vice presidential candidate Marcos Jr. sought Leonen’s inhibition from the election protest he filed against then-Vice President Leni Robredo, arguing that Leonen’s previous statements, writings, and rulings raised doubts about his impartiality. Leonen did not inhibit himself, and the Supreme Court eventually dismissed Marcos’s protest.
A year later, an impeachment complaint was filed against Leonen by lawyer Edwin Cordevilla and endorsed by Ilocos Norte 2nd District Representative Angelo Barba. The complaint accused him of alleged inaction on pending cases and failure to promptly resolve Marcos’s election protest. The House Committee on Justice dismissed the complaint.
Caguioa, 67, joined the Supreme Court on January 22, 2016. Before entering the judiciary, he spent decades in private legal practice and government service.
According to his profile on the Supreme Court website, his father, Eduardo, served as a justice of the then Intermediate Appellate Court, now called Court of Appeals, and was known for his work in Civil Law. Early in his career, Caguioa briefly practiced with his father, handling appeals before the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court.
Caguioa graduated with honors from the Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), earning an economics degree in 1981 and a law degree in 1985, where he ranked fifth in his class. He later placed 15th in the 1985 Bar examinations and was admitted to the Philippine Bar the following year.
He also taught law courses at several universities, including ADMU, University of Santo Tomas (UST), and San Sebastian College.
Before his appointment to the court, Caguioa worked as a litigation and arbitration lawyer. He worked at SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan in 1986 and became a partner in 1994. He later established Caguioa & Gatmayan Law Firm in 2007. His practice focused on civil and commercial disputes, arbitration proceedings, and cases involving corporate and property issues.
He later entered government service under the Aquino administration, serving both as the Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and Secretary of Justice.
He is the Chairperson of the Sub-Committee on Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) Oversight and sits as a member of the Sub-Committee for the Revision of the 1997 Rules of Civil Procedure.
In the 2017 case of Lagman v. Medialdea, Caguioa joined the dissent against the Supreme Court majority’s decision upholding former President Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao following the Marawi siege.
In 2023, Caguioa filed the sole dissenting opinion when the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Republic Act No. 10963 or the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN Law).
He also penned his dissent on the Supreme Court ruling on the Duterte Youth Partylist v. Commission on Elections (COMELEC), a case challenging the post-election substitution of P3PWD Partylist nominees, Caguioa disagreed with the majority ruling that voided COMELEC’s approval of the new nominees.
Like Leonen, Caguioa was also the subject of a motion of inhibition filed by Marcos during the 2016 vice presidential election protest. Marcos cited Caguioa’s previous service in the Aquino administration as grounds for alleged bias.
Zalameda, 63, was appointed to the Supreme Court on August 6, 2019. According to his profile on the Supreme Court website, he served for 11 years as an associate justice of the Court of Appeals, where he later chaired its 17th Division, before joining the High Court.
He finished high school at the University of the East (UE) Caloocan in 1979 and obtained a political science degree from UE Manila in 1983. He earned his law degree from ADMU in 1987 under an academic scholarship, graduating as a dean’s lister.
After passing the Bar in the following year, he entered government service as a branch clerk of the Makati City Regional Trial Court. He later practiced law privately from 1990 to 1995 before rejoining the government as a public prosecutor. In 2002, he was appointed city prosecutor of Mandaluyong City.
Zalameda wrote the Supreme Court decision acquitting former First Lady Imelda Marcos of seven counts of graft after the Court ruled that the prosecution failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Zalameda also authored the landmark ruling in Deduro v. Maj. Gen. Vinoya, where the Supreme Court held that “red-tagging, vilification, labeling, and guilt by association may threaten a person’s right to life, liberty, or security and may justify the issuance of a writ of amparo.”
Dimaampao, 62, joined the Supreme Court on July 2, 2021. According to his profile on the Supreme Court website, he served for more than 17 years as an associate justice of the Court of Appeals, where he chaired its Third Division.
His elevation to the High Court came after years of seeking a seat on the tribunal, having applied 13 times during the Duterte administration before finally securing the appointment.
Born in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur, Dimaampao is regarded as an expert in taxation, commercial law, and Shari’ah law. He also made history as the first magistrate from the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) appointed to the Supreme Court since 1987 and only the second Muslim justice in the Court’s history.
His father, Magdara, served as a COMELEC Commissioner and later as Philippine ambassador to Iraq.
Dimaampao earned a degree in business administration major in accounting from UE in 1982 and passed the Certified Public Accountant licensure exam at 19 years old. He later passed the Bar examinations in 1987.
Early in his legal career, he worked at COMELEC, the House of Representatives, the Court of Appeals, and the Department of Justice. He joined the Court of Appeals at age 40, making him one of the youngest appointees to the post.
Dimaampao taught law subjects in several universities and bar review centers and authored legal reference books on taxation, commercial law, and Islamic law. He also served as a Bar examiner in Civil Law and Taxation and chaired the 2020 Special Shari’ah Bar Examinations.
Dimaampao penned the 2023 decision upholding the constitutionality of the TRAIN Act.
He also wrote the ruling involving the Malampaya natural gas project, which cleared the project’s contractors of more than P53 billion in alleged tax liabilities. The Court ruled that the disputed taxes should be treated as part of the government’s share in the prohect, reversing an earlier finding by the Commission on Audit.
Dimaampao also joined the Court majority in affirming the dismissal of an ill-gotten wealth case against incumbent president Marcos’s parents and their alleged cronies.
Marquez, 60, joined the Supreme Court on November 16, 2021. According to his profile on the Supreme Court website, he served as Court Administrator for nearly 12 years.
On his JBC public panel interview, Marquez said he had spent nearly three decades in the Supreme Court, serving under nine Chief Justices. He also noted that he was the youngest person to be appointed as Court Administrator and went on to become the longest-serving official to hold the post.
He completed his elementary education at De La Salle University and his secondary education at ADMU. He later earned both his economics degree in 1987 and Juris Doctor degree in 1993 from ADMU before being admitted to the Philippine Bar in 1994.
Marquez started as an apprentice and later became a law clerk at the Supreme Court in 1991. He later held a series of key positions within the judiciary. He became a court attorney in 1995, deputy secretary of the Senate Electoral Tribunal in 1999, chief of staff to then-Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno from 2006 to 2010, assistant court administrator, chief of the Public Information Office, and Supreme Court spokesperson.
In the St. Anthony College of Roxas City v. COMELEC case, Marquez penned the ruling that barred the COMELEC from removing or destroying privately owned campaign materials displayed on private property.
Marquez authored the Supreme Court’s ruling in MAGSASAKA Partylist v. COMELEC, which upheld the removal of the partylist group’s national chairperson and affirmed the authority of political parties to interpret and enforce their own internal rules.
He also concurred in the Court’s ruling that acquitted former First Lady Imelda Marcos of graft charges and overturned her previous conviction.
Marquez’s bid for a Supreme Court seat faced oppositions. In 2018, then-Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte questioned his nomination over allegations that he sought to influence the withdrawal of a disbarment complaint filed against her. The complaint stemmed from a 2011 incident in which Sara punched a court sheriff during a demolition operation in Davao City.
In the same year in 2018, Marquez faced a graft complaint over alleged irregularities in a World Bank-funded judiciary project while being considered for a Supreme Court Associate Justice seat. He denied the allegations, and the JBC still included him in its shortlist. No formal charges were filed, and he was later appointed in 2021.
– with research from Ciara Annatu, Zoie Austria, Satur Gawec