‘Well-connected’ CJ aspirant Andres Reyes: No to favors from businessmen

Supreme Court (SC) Associate Justice Andres Reyes, Jr., an applicant for chief justice, on Wednesday said it is not his practice to give favors to business associates as a member of the country's highest tribunal.

During Reyes' interview by the Judicial and Bar Council, retired judge and council member Toribio Ilao, Jr. said the justice is "well-connected" because he belongs to a family of businessmen and asked how he handles requests for favors.

"I always tell them, Your Honor, that I cannot help them, because, I told them, it's not my thing to really accommodate people for favors in the court," Reyes said.

He said he "really avoided" such propositions when he was presiding justice of the Court of Appeals, a position he occupied from 2010 to 2017, when President Rodrigo Duterte appointed him to the High Court.

Reyes also belongs to a family of magistrates: his father was the late CA presiding justice Andres Reyes, Sr.; and his grandfather was CA and SC justice Alex Reyes, Sr.

He is up against three fellow SC justices in his attempt to succeed Chief Justice Lucas Bersamin, who retires on October 18: Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Estela Perlas Bernabe, and Jose Reyes, Jr.

Reyes voted for the ouster of ex-chief justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, the burial of former president Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the extensions of martial law in Mindanao, and the recent dismissal of a petition seeking the legalization of same-sex marriages.

He dissented in the ruling that declared the retrenchment of Philippine Airlines workers valid and in the downgrading of charges against property developer Delfin Lee from syndicated estafa to simple estafa.

Reyes will retire next year. — BM, GMA News