Justice Diosdado Peralta has been appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte as the new Chief Justice today, October 23, 2019. This was reported in a press briefing conducted by the High Court. He was picked by the president over other hopefuls Justice Estela Perlas-Bernabe and Justice Andres Reyes Jr. Justice Diosdado Peralta is the most senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court who will serve until 2022.
As posted in the Supreme Court website, the new Chief Justice was “born in Laoag City, Ilocos Norte, to former Digos City, Davao del Sur and Manila Court of First Instance Judge Elviro Lazo Peralta and public school teacher Catalina Madarang Peralta, Justice Diosdado M. Peralta started his career in government service in 1987 when he was appointed Third Assistant City Fiscal of Laoag City. In 1988, he was assigned to the Prosecutor’s Office in the City of Manila. He later became the Assistant Chief of the Investigation Division of the Office of the City Prosecutor in the early part of 1994.
In September 1994, Justice Peralta was appointed as Presiding Judge of Branch 95 of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) of Quezon City, which was designated as a Special Criminal Court on Heinous Crimes and, later, Drugs Cases. He was promoted to the Sandiganbayan in 2002, and became its Presiding Justice in 2008. In January 13, 2009, he was named as the 162nd Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He is the third Presiding Justice of the anti-graft court to be appointed to the High Court.”
Chief Justice Peralta “is an alumnus of the University of Santo Tomas Faculty of Civil Law where he was as a working student and graduated in 1979. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Economics from the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in October 1974.
Before joining the Supreme Court as Associate Justice in 2009, “he was a professor, lecturer, resource person, and Bar reviewer in Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Remedial Law, and Trial Techniques at the UST Faculty of Civil Law, the Ateneo de Manila University, San Beda College of Law, the University of the East, and the University of the Philippines Law Center, among others. He has been a member of the Corps of Professors under the Department of Criminal Law of the PHILJA and remains to be an active lecturer thereof on its Orientation Program for Newly-appointed Judges, Pre-judicature Program and other training seminars.”
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