Written by Arlyn VCD Palisoc Romualdo
Photo from SC Public Information Office
Court of Appeals (CA) Associate Justice Jhosep Ylarde Lopez was appointed to the Supreme Court (SC) by President Rodrigo Duterte on January 25, following the early retirement of SC Associate Justice Priscilla Baltazar-Padilla in November last year.
He was sworn in as the 190th SC Associate Justice by SC Chief Justice Diosdado M. Peralta on January 26 at the En Banc Session Hall. CA Presiding Justice Remedios A. Salazar-Fernando was also at the oath-taking ceremony.
Lopez graduated cum laude in 1983 with an AB Political Science degree from the then UP College of Arts and Sciences. He worked as a research assistant at the then newly-established UP Law Center Institute of Judicial Administration (now Institute for the Administration of Justice) while he pursued his Law degree at the UP College of Law. He earned his Bachelor of Laws in 1988. He took his Masters degree in Public Governance at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM), graduating in 2006.
He was appointed as CA Associate Justice in May 2012 and would have marked nine years as such this year.
Prior to his stint in the CA, Lopez was Manila City Prosecutor from 2006 to 2012. He was elected councilor of Manila’s 3rd District for four terms, from 1992 to 1998 and from 2001 to 2006. In his first two terms, he was the chief legal consultant of then Mayor Lito Atienza. From 1993 to 2006, he was a partner at the Lopez Rasul Maliwanag Baybay Palaran Law Offices.
He was chief legal counsel of the Philippine Senate for a year before he ran for public office. And prior to the Senate, Lopez was chief legal officer of UP-Philippine General Hospital. This, after serving as UP Diliman legal counsel at the Office of Legal Affairs, where he began his career in public service and the legal profession after passing the Bar Examinations in 1989.
Lopez is also an educator. He is a senior lecturer at the UP College of Law. He also teaches at PLM College of Law and New Era University College of Law.
He is expected to serve as SC Associate Justice until his mandatory retirement on 08 February 2033, his 70th birthday.