New Lucena donates 2 hectares for judicial academy site

ILOILO CITY — The municipality of New Lucena has donated a 20,000-square-meter property in Barangay Guinobatan for a future site of the Philippine Judicial Academy (PHILJA), the judiciary’s education and training institution.

New Lucena Mayor Carl Vincent Mondejar, Chief Justice Alexander G. Gesmundo, Court Administrator Ma. Theresa Dolores C. Gomez-Estoesta, and PHILJA Chancellor Edgardo L. Delos Santos, a retired Supreme Court associate justice, signed the deed of donation on Oct. 8 at the Iloilo Convention Center.

Iloilo Gov. Arthur Defensor Jr. served as a witness.

Institutionalized under Republic Act No. 8557 in 1998, PHILJA operates under the Supreme Court’s administration, supervision, and control.

It provides education and training for justices, judges, court personnel, lawyers, and aspiring members of the judiciary to strengthen legal knowledge, professional competence, integrity, and efficiency in the administration of justice.

The law provides that the academy may be located in Tagaytay City or other places determined by the Supreme Court.

Also present at the ceremony were presiding and associate justices, Integrated Bar of the Philippines Iloilo Chapter President Mehelinda A. Penetrante, trial judges from Iloilo, and regional court managers.

Defensor was accompanied by Provincial Legal Officer Dennis Ventilacion, League of Municipalities of the Philippines–Iloilo President and Badiangan Mayor Suzette Mamon, and lawyer Artem Raymundo of the Provincial Legal Office.