By Moira Encina
Eagle News Service
Supreme Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez is in the High Court en banc’s shortlist of nominees to replace Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., who will retire in August.
Marquez garnered the second-most number of votes from the SC magistrates, who exercised their power to vote for their nominees after a respite from such an exercise when Maria Lourdes Sereno was. Chief Justice and ex-officio chairperson of the Judicial and Bar Council.
The SC shortlist will then be considered by the JBC.
Marquez’s inclusion in the list was despite private citizen Rjhay Laurea’s opposition to his nomination.
The court administrator, however, denied Laurea’s accusations he had something to do with what the World Bank said were “ineligible” funds amounting to P8.6 million, or funds intended for the High Court’s Judicial Reform Support Project but which were used for other expenses.
The World Bank’s finding in 2012 prompted it to ask the SC to return the P8.6 million of the $21.9 million it loaned the High Court.
According to Marquez, the allegations were “old, erroneous (and a) non-issue.”
In the first place, Marquez said the World Bank project and funds “never passed me despite my numerous positions.”
“That was under the Program Management Office or PMO which was never under me,” Marquez said.