Vicente Abad Santos

Infobox Philippine Supreme Court Associate Justice
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name=Vicente Abad Santos
order=
term start= January 17, 1979Reappointed to the Court on April 3, 1986]
term end= July 12, 1986
predecessor= Fred Ruiz Castro
successor= Abraham Sarmiento
appointer=Ferdinand Marcos
date of birth= birth date|1916|7|12|mf=y
place of birth= San Fernando, Pampanga
date of death= death date and age|1993|12|30|1916|7|12|mf=y
place of death=

Vicente Abad Santos (July 12, 1916 – December 30, 1993) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines.

Profile

He was born in San Fernando, in Pampanga province of central Luzon. Two paternal uncles were prominent Filipinos during the American period, Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, and his brother Pedro, a leading socialist leader during the Commonwealth era.

Santos earned his Bachelor's degree and degree in law at the University of the Philippines before earning a master's degree at Harvard Law School in the United States. After serving briefly as a trial court judge, he joined the faculty of the University of the Philippines College of Law as its dean in 1958. He would serve as dean for the next 11 years.

Public service

Santos was appointed Secretary (later Minister) of Justice by President Ferdinand Marcos in 1970. He would serve in that capacity until January 1979. As early as June of 1977, he was appointed to the Supreme Court, but he deferred accepting the appointment until January 17, 1979 when he was finally seated on the High Court.

Long viewed as a supporter of Ferdinand Marcos, he displayed considerable independence from the Marcos government once he was seated on the Supreme Court. By 1986, he was asked by the anti-Marcos opposition to swear into office Corazon Aquino's vice-presidential candidate Salvador Laurel at the height of the EDSA Revolution. When Aquino assumed the presidency in February 25, 1986, she asked for the resignation of the incumbent justices of the Supreme Court to allow her a free hand in reorganizing the Court. Abad Santos and fellow incumbent Justice Claudio Teehankee, Sr. were the President's first two appointments to the reorganized Supreme Court. However, Abad Santos retired shortly after, in July 1986, upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.

ee also

* Jose Abad Santos
* Pedro Abad Santos

Notes

References

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