Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo

Here's a list of some of Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo's decisions.

BY STANLEY BUENAFE GAJETE

(UPDATED) Alexander Gesmundo was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on April 5, 2021. He is expected to serve as chief justice for over five years or until November 2026.

He was first appointed to the Supreme Court by President Rodrigo Duterte on Aug. 14, 2017.

Before his appointment, he was associate justice at the Sandiganbayan and, before that, an assistant solicitor general.

He finished BS Economics at the Lyceum of the Philippines and earned his law degree from the Ateneo Law School.

Alexander Gesmundo, who frequently votes
in Duterte's favor, is new SC chief justice

PCIJ is following the selection process for the next chief justice of the Supreme Court. Follow our coverage here.

— PCIJ, March 2021

Posted in: Supreme Court

In This Series

'We want the trial to start': What happens now to ICC's probe into Duterte's drug war?

Human rights lawyer Kristina Conti, counsel of the families of drug war victims, said ICC's decisions are hard to predict because its actions are highly compartmentalized. What is clear from the recent developments, though, is that they have strong evidence to begin a trial, she told the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

Philippine rice farmers wish for set price amid chaotic rice value chain

PCIJ traces how prices were set in the market during the rice shortage season last year. It finds that prices increased by at least 80% to as much as 157% from farmgate to retail.

Philippine power transmission monopoly NGCP questions rate review amid calls for refund

Delays in the rate review process mean the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines will continue to charge transmission rates that critics have described as ‘excessive.’

Barangay captains top crooks
in jail; majority skirt slammer

WHO has been jailed for corruption in this country? In its search for answers, the Philippine Threshold Program launched a study on “Time Served for Corruption” covering 118 cases from 2001 to 2008 of public officials who had been prosecuted by the Ombudsman, convicted by the Sandiganbayan, and sent to jail after the Supreme Court upheld their convictions.

Access to info in JBC:
Close, open, close again

THE Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) was purposely created by the 1987 Constitution to depoliticize and to open up to the citizens the screening of nominees and appointments to the judiciary. To achieve this, Associate Professor Dante B. Gatmaytan of the University of the Philippines College of Law says the JBC should have looked with favor at full transparency – in the conduct of its processes and in the handling of all its records – as both premise and armor of its grave mandate.

Fickle presidents, opaque
JBC process, elitist court

MOSTLY old, mostly male, mostly born and bred in imperious Luzon and all schooled in imperial Manila. Two in every three were jurists and bureaucrats in their previous lives, and thus, also mostly creatures of habit and routine. In the last 20 years, while 15 of the 80 nominees were female, only three women were eventually appointed.