ASSOCIATE JUSTICE EDGARDO DE LOS SANTOS has been appointed the executive justice of the Court of Appeals (CA) Visayas Station.

De los Santos replaced Associate Justice Gabriel Ingles, whose four-year term ended on Oct. 10.

Former Supreme Court Ma. Lourdes Sereno appointed Ingles as the CA-Cebu Station executive justice on April 1, 2014. He assumed the position in February 2014.

In his message posted on his Facebook page, Ingles thanked his staff and colleagues in the CA for supporting him during his stint.

Ingles said the CA-Cebu Station is “in good hands” with the assumption of Justice de los Santos.

“The privilege to serve any office in government, including membership in the bench, comes from the people and is owed to the people and that gratitude can only be due to the people and returned to the people through honest, competent and incorruptible service,” said Ingles.

With the end of his tenure, Ingles said he intends to devote his time to his principal duty as a member of the judiciary.

“To a member of the bench the authority delegated is to dispense justice, which means essentially the determination of what is or are due to the parties in a given case based only on the facts proven by evidence or legal truth and the law applicable to said facts,” Ingles said.

De los Santos, known to her friends as Edsa, is a native of Palompon, Leyte. He took up political science at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, where he later earned his bachelor of laws degree at the same university.

After passing the Bar in 1977, de los Santos worked as a legal researcher of then Court of First Instance Judge and later Associate Justice Abelardo Dayrit.

He was later appointed Municipal Trial Court judge at the age of 30 and was assigned to former Chief Justice Felix Makasiar’s hometown in Siaton, Negros Oriental.

De los Santos was later promoted Regional Trial Court judge in Bacolod City where he served for 16 years.

One of his landmark decisions as a CA justice was when he issued a writ of kalikasan against Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña and two other environment agency officials relative to the closure of the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill in October 2016.

De los Santos was also awarded the 2016 Ulirang Ama Sectoral Award fore Law and Judiciary; Outstanding Palomponganon Award in 2009; Outstanding Law Alumnus of the USC in 2008; and was nominated twice as a Judicial Excellence Awardee in 2006 and 2007. (GMD)