MANILA - The appellate justice vying for one of the two available posts at the Supreme Court (SC) once flunked the bar exam.

Court of Appeals (CA) Justice Josefina Salonga first took the bar exams in 1967, a year after she finished law at the University of the Philippines. She did not pass the exams, which is said to be the hardest government test in the country.

Salonga is eyeing to fill one of the posts vacated by newly retired jurists Dante Tinga and Alicia Austria-Martinez.

She clinched votes from half of the 15-member SC in Tuesday’s voting

In a phone interview with abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak, however, Salonga, the current chair of the CA eighth division, said that her performance in the bar exams “should not be the only gauge” of her competence.

“I would not make excuses for it (failing the test),” she said. At the time, her father got sick and had to set aside her preparations for the bar exams.

Salonga took the tests again in 1969 and passed with a grade of 75 percent.

Other flunker

Salonga said that her critics are making mountains out of molehills. She cited the case of Justice Claro M. Recto, who failed the exams when he first took it in 1913 because he was adept in Spanish. The exams were written in English.

Recto took it again and passed it the following year.

The JBC, which vets nominees to the president, who is the appointing authority, is expected to come up with its shortlist for the two vacant SC posts on Monday.

Even if the SC’s choices do not have a direct bearing on the voting of the JBC, legal insiders said it is likely that the SC’s choices could still influence the decision of the JBC.

Critics took Salonga’s selection for the SC as a sign of declining standards for intellectual competence.

Independence

Salonga stressed that a more important factor in her application to the High Court is her “clean record.”

“The [judiciary] is a small world,” she said, adding that lawyers, litigants and fellow justices could attest to her independence. Salonga has been in the judiciary for more than 20 years.

“My track record would back me up,” she added.

She challenged her critics to look at her decisions, which she said established her competence. She cited the most recent case she handled along with justices Lucas Bersamin, who has now been appointed to the SC, and Justice Japar Dimaampao. Both were members of a Court of Appeals special division which she chaired.

The division was tasked by the SC to hear the land dispute case between Manotok Realty Inc. and CLT Realty Development Corp. The two are caught in a legal tussle over the ownership of 1,000 hectares of the disputed Maysilo Estate in Caloocan City and Malabon.

The High Tribunal adopted the findings of the special division, and ruled that the Manotok Realty Inc. and Araneta Institute of Agriculture have the rightful claim over the said property, and not CLT Realty Development Corp. and the heirs of Jose Dimson.

“The Report is a commendably exhaustive and pellucid analysis of the issues referred to the Special Division. It is a more than adequate basis for this Court to make the following final dispositions in these cases,” the SC said in its resolution dated March 2009.

Award

She said the issue about her dismal performance in the bar exam was already raised when she vied for her post in the Court of Appeals.

“The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), however, noted that I was awarded for judicial excellence as a regional trial court judge,” she said.

During Salonga’s term as Makati Regional Trial Court executive judge from 1997 to 2000, she was granted the Justice Felicisimo Feria Award for Judicial Excellence in 1997. The award recognizes members of the judiciary who maintain a high disposal rate and introduced reforms in the court.

She later became a member and chairperson of the screening committee of the Society for Judicial Excellence, which gives the awards.