Carpio declines nomination for Chief Justice

Supreme Court (SC) Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio has declined his nomination for Chief Justice for the last time.

Carpio said he declined because he will retire shortly after Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin compulsorily bows out of the SC on October 18, according to a report on GMA News' Unang Balita on Tuesday.

Carpio will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 on October 26.

Being among the five most senior magistrates of the tribunal, Carpio was automatically nominated to take over the post Bersamin will vacate.

He had also been nominated to succeed Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, who was ousted last year, but he declined, he said, out of a refusal to benefit from a decision he had voted against. Carpio was part of the minority that ruled against Sereno’s removal from the SC.

President Rodrigo Duterte appointed then-associate justice Teresita Leonardo-De Castro to replace Sereno. When De Castro retired, Duterte appointed Bersamin to take her place.

After Bersamin, the five most senior justices are Carpio and Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Estela Perlas-Bernabe, Marvic Leonen, and Francis Jardeleza.

Jardeleza will retire on September 26.

Leonen has also declined his nomination.

He did not state any reason in turning the nomination down, Court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said Monday. —Nicole-Anne C. Lagrimas/KG, GMA News