A Passionate Strategist: Justice Antonio Carpio

DAVAO CITY —The University of the Philippines in Mindanao will be holding its 11th Commencement Exercises on April 16, 2008. Honoring the University as the invited Guest Speaker to this event in its Centennial is Associate Justice Antonio Carpio.

Coming from a generation of student leaders and freedom fighters, Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio has proven to be a man of conviction and political astuteness. The tumultuous '70's under Martial Law had shaped the man who would become Supreme Court justice.

Justice Carpio was born in Davao City on October 26, 1949. He completed his primary and secondary education from the Ateneo de Davao University and went on to finish a degree in Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University in 1969. As a young student journalist, he wrote with audacity and precision for The Guidon, where he served as editor-in-chief. Edgar Jopson and Eman Lacaba, the fearless student activists during that period, were Carpio's batchmates in the Ateneo.

It was Justice Carpio's father, former regional director of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Davao and also a lawyer, Bernardo Carpio, who encouraged him to pursue the same profession. At the beginning it was only through his father's resolve that he continued studying law. "It was useless to be a lawyer then," as Carpio used to say before he was appointed to the Supreme Court. But it was in law school at the University of the Philippines where Carpio met Vietnamese Ruth Nguyen, his future wife who was introduced to him by activist Nelia Sancho. They would have two children, Ronaldo and Audrey, both college graduates.

Graduating Cum Laude and Valedictorian from the UP College of Law was only the beginning of a sterling, historic career. In the same year that he finished his law degree, Justice Carpio took and passed the Bar Exams, placing 6th in the 1975 Bar Examination. He then co-founded a firm with partners F. Arthur "Pancho" Villaraza and Avelino "Nonong" Cruz Jr. While he was the managing partner of the firm, Carpio balanced his practice with teaching two subjects in law in UP Diliman. The brightest students in his class were usually recruited to the law firm. Years later he would also serve as a member of the university's Board of Regents.

But true to his principles, Carpio was willing to risk his career for a greater cause. On the advent of the first EDSA revolution, he was ready to unite with Reform the Armed Forces Movement, leaving the law firm on hold.

Apart from being Senior Partner at the Carpio and Villaraza Law Office, then Atty. Carpio served as chief legal counsel to former President Fidel V. Ramos, a man he strongly supported during the 1992 elections. Serving as Ramos's legal counsel for four years, he helped collapse dominant cartels in the telecommunications and shipping industries, which as a college student Carpio already saw to be a cause of social inequity. He would show his independence from his former boss when became one of the most strident critics of the constitutional amendment.

"The most important qualification of a judge is independence, not brilliance," Carpio had told a former associate. In his leisure time, Justice Carpio enjoys sharp shooting, sailing and hunting. He is also known to be a technology enthusiast: he had pushed for an e-library for the judiciary, and earlier in the '80's, he was responsible for bringing in computers to his former firm.
As a writer, he wrote columns in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Manila Times and in Sun Star Manila. His editorial work was shown in the Philippine Law Journal of the UP College of Law , The Philippine Collegian, The Intellectual Property Journal and the Journal of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines .

Justice Carpio had also served as the President of the Licensing Executive Society of the Philippines and the Pasay-Makati Chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines . Having been sworn in as a member of the Supreme Court of the Philippines on his 52nd birthday in 2001, Justice Carpio co-headed the Oversight Committee on Halls of Justice.

A fiercely outspoken guardian of the constitution, Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, this honorable man who grew up in Davao , has become one of the country's most revered public servants.
(By John Bengan and Sheila Bulaong)