THE RECORD SHOULD DECIDE THE NEXT CHIEF JUSTICE

The public discussion over the next Chief Justice is becoming too shallow. Much of it begins and ends with a political label: Aquino appointee or Duterte appointee.

Who appointed a justice belongs in the record. It can reveal personal ties, political context, and a possible source of pressure. It cannot tell us, by itself, how that justice used judicial power.

Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70 on November 6, 2026. An August 31 report said the Judicial and Bar Council had invited Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen and Associate Justices Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Ramon Paul Hernando, Henri Jean Paul Inting, and Rodil Zalameda to apply as its preferred candidates. At that stage, they were invitees. The official shortlist from which President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. must choose had not been released.

The Constitution requires the JBC to send the President at least three names. The vacancy must be filled within 90 days, and the appointment does not require confirmation from Congress.

This is Marcos's first opportunity to appoint a Chief Justice. It is also a test of whether the Court's leadership will be judged through performance, independence, judgment, and a serious plan for the judiciary.

THE APPOINTMENT HISTORY

President Benigno Aquino III appointed Leonen and Caguioa to the Supreme Court. President Rodrigo Duterte appointed Hernando, Inting, and Zalameda. Caguioa also served Aquino as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel and Secretary of Justice, and their long personal association deserves scrutiny.

The same scrutiny belongs on every candidate's record. Presidential influence over judges is a legitimate concern, especially when a justice is new to the Court or the appointing president still holds office.

A peer-reviewed study examined 70 major political cases decided by the Philippine Supreme Court from 1987 to 2020. It estimated that justices appointed by the sitting president were about 15 percent more likely to cast a pro-government vote. First-year justices were about 20 percent more likely to do so, while the estimated effect involving Duterte appointees was about 25 percent higher than the comparable probability for predecessor-appointed justices.

The authors warned that the sample was small. Their findings show a group pattern, not the motive behind any individual vote. The study strengthens the case for examining each justice's decisions instead of treating the appointing president as a complete answer.

The Court's May 2026 vote on Senator Ronald dela Rosa's request for a temporary restraining order shows why individual records matter. The Court denied the request, 9-5-1. Among the five reported invitees for Chief Justice, Leonen, Caguioa, and Zalameda voted to deny it, while Hernando and Inting dissented.

That vote concerned temporary relief and did not settle the entire case. It crossed appointment labels because Zalameda, a Duterte appointee, joined Leonen and Caguioa in denying the request.

THE OFFICE THEY SEEK

The Constitution calls for proven competence, integrity, probity, and independence. The Chief Justice leads a Court that supervises all courts and judicial personnel, writes procedural rules, and chairs the JBC.

I would judge the candidates through five questions. Has the justice resisted political pressure when the law required it? Can the justice write persuasively enough to carry colleagues? Has the justice led reforms that improved access, speed, or fairness? Can the justice run a national court system? Is there enough time before retirement to carry a serious program through?

Seniority deserves respect, and lower-court experience has real value. Neither should settle the choice automatically.

THE DAMAGE THAT OUTLASTED DUTERTE

My call for a tabula rasa comes from the damage left by Rodrigo Duterte's presidency. This is my judgment about the condition of public institutions, grounded in documented attacks on judicial independence and the legal profession.

In April 2018, Duterte publicly declared himself the enemy of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and called for her removal. The International Commission of Jurists described the attack as intimidation and an assault on the rule of law. One month later, the Supreme Court removed Sereno through a quo warranto case challenging her eligibility to hold office while impeachment proceedings were pending.

Leonen and Caguioa dissented. Leonen warned that the ruling diminished judicial independence and made the Court vulnerable to political pressure.

The danger extended beyond the Court's conference room. Amnesty International reported in March 2021 that at least 61 lawyers, prosecutors, and judges had been killed since Duterte took office. Freedom House also reported a decline in judicial independence during his administration.

These facts do not make every Duterte appointee unfit. They explain why deference to executive power, personal loyalty, judicial safety, and institutional courage must receive serious attention in this appointment.

My use of tabula rasa does not call for erased precedent or a purge. I mean a reset in institutional instinct: less fear of the executive, less gratitude toward political patrons, and no presumption that any president owns the judges he appointed.

TIME AND SUCCESSION

The five reported invitees have sharply different periods left before mandatory retirement. Leonen reaches 70 in December 2032, Caguioa in September 2029, Hernando in August 2036, Inting in September 2027, and Zalameda in August 2033.

Longer tenure can support sustained reform, although it can also extend a poor choice. A short tenure can limit what a Chief Justice completes, although it can be politically attractive to a President who values additional appointment decisions.

A reader raised the strongest version of that counterargument in Inting's favor. If Marcos elevates Inting after Gesmundo retires, Marcos can appoint a Chief Justice and then fill the Associate Justice seat opened by Inting's elevation. When Inting retires on September 4, 2027, Marcos can appoint another Chief Justice before his own term ends in June 2028. If he elevates another sitting Associate Justice, he can then fill that newly opened Associate Justice seat as well.

The number of mandatory retirements does not change. Gesmundo and Inting still create two retirement vacancies. The sequence could give Marcos as many as four appointment decisions tied to those events: two choices for Chief Justice and two possible appointments to Associate Justice seats created by elevations.

Choosing a longer-serving sitting justice as Chief Justice would usually produce three decisions during the same period: the first Chief Justice appointment, one replacement Associate Justice, and a replacement for Inting when Inting retires from his existing seat. This arithmetic establishes a possible political incentive. It is not evidence that Marcos or the JBC has adopted such a plan.

MARVIC LEONEN

Leonen is my present choice because his record combines demonstrated resistance to political power, experience building legal institutions, persuasive work within the Court, and enough remaining time to lead. Aquino's appointment of him is part of his history. It is not my reason for supporting him.

Before joining the Court, Leonen served as dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law. He helped establish the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center, whose work included legal support for Indigenous peoples and rural communities, and he led the government's peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

His Court record includes dissents from the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani and the removal of Sereno. In the Anti-Terrorism Act cases, all five reported invitees voted to strike down the qualification attached to protected advocacy, protest, dissent, and similar activity. Leonen also voted to invalidate several other challenged provisions that some of the other candidates would have upheld.

His administrative record is substantial. He chaired the first digitalized and regionalized Bar examinations and has publicly promoted court technology and artificial intelligence reforms that keep human judgment and access to justice at the center.

Leonen also has weaknesses that deserve direct questions. He never served as a trial judge or Court of Appeals justice. Hernando, Inting, and Zalameda therefore have deeper experience in the daily operation of lower courts.

An impeachment complaint filed against Leonen accused him of delay and defects in his asset declarations. In May 2021, the House justice committee dismissed it, 44-0, after finding the complaint insufficient in form and dependent on hearsay and unauthenticated material. Those accusations did not become established findings, while the public concern about delay remains a fair subject for JBC examination.

THE SARA DUTERTE RULING

The 2025 Sara Duterte impeachment ruling is the hardest part of Leonen's record for his supporters. Leonen was the ponente, the justice assigned to write the Court's decision. The decision declared unconstitutional the Articles of Impeachment arising from the fourth complaint, held that the Senate acquired no jurisdiction to try them, and stopped the Senate trial.

The first three complaints were treated separately. They had been filed through a different constitutional route, were not referred to the House justice committee, and were later archived. The Court treated their termination or loss of viability as the event that triggered the one-year bar against another impeachment proceeding.

The ruling did not decide whether the allegations against Duterte were true. It expressly said she had not been absolved and that another complaint could proceed after the constitutional period.

Critics have strong grounds for questioning the decision. Former justices and other lawyers disputed its reading of the one-year bar and its application of due process during impeachment. ABS-CBN also said two of its reports were cited inaccurately in connection with the statement that the Articles had been transmitted without a plenary vote, even though its coverage reported and carried the House action live.

That sourcing problem is a real defect in a decision of enormous public consequence. Leonen should explain how it entered the ruling, whether it affected the Court's reasoning, and what editorial checks he would require as Chief Justice.

Leonen did not decide the case alone. Thirteen participating justices agreed with the July 2025 result. Caguioa took no part, while Maria Filomena Singh was on leave. The participating members later denied the motions for reconsideration in January 2026.

Leonen bears added responsibility for the text as ponente, including its factual accuracy. The constitutional holding and the order stopping the trial were judgments of the Court, joined by the other participating justices, including Hernando, Inting, and Zalameda.

My support survives that ruling, although the ruling lowers my confidence. I can disagree with its reasoning, demand an answer about the inaccurate citation, and still assess Leonen's full record. Treating one disputed judgment as an automatic disqualification would repeat the shallow decision-making I object to when it is based only on the appointing president.

THE OTHER CANDIDATES

Caguioa is my strongest alternative. His dissents in the Marcos burial and Sereno cases, his votes in the Anti-Terrorism Act litigation, and his leadership of the Unified Legal Aid Service give him a serious record on rights and access to justice. His long relationship with Aquino requires honest examination, and his retirement in September 2029 would leave him under three years to lead.

Hernando offers the strongest combination of conventional judicial experience and time. He worked as a prosecutor, trial judge, and Court of Appeals justice, chaired the 2023 Bar examinations, and could remain Chief Justice until August 2036. His more government-deferential positions on several disputed Anti-Terrorism Act provisions and his dissent from the denial of Dela Rosa's request are fair evidence for assessing his philosophy. They do not prove personal loyalty to Duterte.

Inting brings long service as a prosecutor, trial judge, and Court of Appeals justice. His leadership of the 2026 Shari'ah Special Bar Examinations showed attention to legal access outside the usual Manila-centered track. His September 2027 retirement date would give him less than a year after Gesmundo's retirement to direct the judiciary, which is a poor fit for the sustained reset I want.

Zalameda served as a prosecutor and spent about 11 years on the Court of Appeals. He can remain on the Court until August 2033 and has participated in legal-aid and court-reform work. His votes resist an easy political label, so the JBC interview should press him on executive power, case delay, legal access, and judicial independence.

MY CHOICE

Leonen has confronted executive power in defining cases, led national reforms, worked across deep political divisions, and has six years available to pursue an administrative program. He should still answer for the factual defect in the Sara Duterte ruling, explain how he would attack case delay, and give measurable commitments on judicial safety, legal aid, digital access, and lower-court working conditions.

One Chief Justice cannot repair the courts alone. I am rooting for Marvic Leonen because his performance, viewed as a whole, gives me the strongest case for independence and reform. The same standard requires me to keep testing that preference against facts.

UNRESOLVED FACTUAL LIMITATION

As of August 31, 2026, the formal applicant pool, interviews, shortlist, and each candidate's program were still unavailable. Publicly searchable signed decisions and official biographies also do not provide a complete, comparable measure of docket performance or internal administrative ability. This ranking is an informed opinion and cannot serve as a full performance audit.