President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. recently named the new chief of the Sandiganbayan, the anti-graft court that handles his family’s ill-gotten wealth cases.

Marcos signed the appointment of Geraldine Faith Econg as the new Sandiganbayan presiding justice in an order dated January 7, replacing the recently retired Amparo Cabotaje Tang. Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin confirmed Econg’s appointment on Wednesday, January 8.

As the new presiding justice, Econg will oversee the court mandated by the 1987 Constitution to put to trial allegedly corrupt officials and personnel. The court’s jurisdiction covers high-ranking government officials, and crimes like plunder, graft, and related offenses.

The Sandiganbayan also works hand in hand with the Ombudsman, which prosecutes and files cases, while the Sandiganbayan tries the accused. The court has been trying high-profile cases, like the highly controversial pork barrel scam, among others.

Although the judiciary is independent and co-equal with the executive and legislative branches of the government, the chief executive has the power to pick justices for courts based on a short list of qualified applicants. In this case, Marcos earned the privilege to appoint justices — even in the Sandiganbayan — after he won the top post in 2022.

This is also among Marcos’ major appointments in the judiciary so far.

Who is Econg?

Prior to her appointment as the presiding justice, Econg served as Sandiganbayan associate justice and was the chairperson of the second division.

• Late former president Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III appointed her associate justice on January 20, 2016.
• Econg will retire from the judiciary on August 6, 2037, or when she reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70.
• In 2013, Econg was short listed by the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) for Court of Appeals in Cebu, for the position of former associate justice Pampio Abarintos.
• She was also short listed by the JBC for the position of deputy ombudsman for the Visayas in 2014.
• Econg also served as a judge in lower courts. She was chosen presiding judge of Regional Trial Court Branch 9 of Cebu City in 2004, at age 35. She also headed some Municipal Trial Courts in Cities.
• In 2010, she was named director of the Supreme Court’s (SC) program management office, a unit created to manage the judicial reform program implementation or the Action Program for Judicial Reform.
• Econg was named the regional court administration office head in Cebu in 2012, but this did not flourish after some magistrates opposed the reopening of the office.

Notable cases, controversies

Dynamic is the word to describe Econg’s legal and judicial career.

• Econg was part of the Sandiganbayan divisions that handled high-profile pork barrel cases.
• She was among the associate justices who voted to acquit Senator Bong Revilla of plunder in relation to the scam in 2018. “It is an unpopular decision. I would have loved to be a heroine, that I convicted him, but at the end of the day we are bound by evidence,” Econg said after the promulgation of the ruling that freed Revilla.
• Econg was also among the justices who junked the pork barrel-related plunder case of former senator and now chief presidential legal counsel Juan Ponce Enrile last year. Since the original division consisting of three justices did not arrive at a unanimous decision, Econg and another justice were pulled in as special members of the third division, and then later ruled on the case, together with the existing justices.
• Under Sandiganbayan rules, if the regular division’s ruling is not unanimous, a special division has to be created and two more justices are added in the voting

• The new Sandiganbayan chief is also the ponente (author) of the ruling that dismissed the last six coconut levy cases against late tyrant Ferdinand E. Marcos, former first lady Imelda Marcos, Enrile, businessmen Cesar Zalamea and Jesus Pineda, and the heirs of former Zamboanga mayor Maria Clara Lobregat. The coco levy scam started following the late tyrant and his cronies’ enactment of a law that imposed taxes on coconut farmers’ products.
• While she is a lower court judge, Econg handled the parricide case against former lawmaker Ruben Ecleo Jr., and claims against the Mactan Cebu International Airport.
• Some controversies also came along Econg’s way earlier in her career. In 2007, she had to undergo drug testing after an anonymous person accused her of using illegal drugs. She also faced an administrative case over a marriage scam in Cebu, but the case was later dismissed due to lack of evidence. – Rappler.com