Former Supreme Court Justice and now UP Board of Regent member Reynato S. Puno was conferred an honorary doctorate of laws on January 11 at the Malcolm Hall Theater, opening the college’s centennial lecture series with a call for charter change.
Puno received the University’s highest distinction for his achievements as “a man of law, prose and religion, who exemplifies the modern Filipino intellectual and for fulfilling his responsibilities and civic duty to the nation through years of invaluable public service.”
Puno, who served as Supreme Court Chief Justice from 2006-2010, was instrumental in the promulgation of the writs of amparo (2007) and habeas data (2008), which make for more transparent and swift dispensation of justice for victims of extrajudicial killings.
He also spearheaded several initiatives that lessen the country’s growing number of unresolved cases, among them the justice on wheels project, in which a few bus units were converted to mobile courtroom serving the greater Manila area and the Case Management Information System (CMIS), which utilized donated computers and technology to speed up the pace of litigation.
At the conferment, Puno delivered the first of a series of lectures, entitled the UP Law Centennial Lectures, celebrating the 100th year of the UP College of Law.
In his lecture entitled “The Need for Constitutional Change,” Puno emphasized the need to amend the country’s laws, citing several initiatives that he believes will get the country “out of the belly of the whale.”
Among the points he argued for were greater, more equal public representation in the Senate and House of Representatives, a financially independent judiciary and the need to make more distinct the line between executive privilege and the power of congress to investigate in aid of legislation.
The next UP law centennial lecture will be in February. The series, 12 lectures in all, will last throughout 2011.
—Anna Kristine Regidor