Who is QC Regional Trial Court Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes?
Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2019 08:49:10 +0000
QUEZON City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes (Courtroom sketch by Ala Paredes, Supreme Court handout/via AFP)
Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes was a labor and development analyst, a research attorney, a public attorney, a public prosecutor, and a Municipal Trial Court in Cities (MTCC) judge before her promotion to her current post in the judiciary in 2004.
She would have wanted to be a television or radio news anchor after finishing a course in journalism at the Lyceum of the Philippines, but pursued a law degree at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) to achieve her mother’s dream.
Published reports quoted Reyes: “My mother was only able to study law for three years. This probably motivated me to become a lawyer someday.”
She finished her law degree at UST in 1986 and passed the bar examinations in 1987 with a grade of 80.80 per cent.
Chief Justice Diosdado M. Peralta said, in a recent interview, Reyes was his student at UST.
Reyes was a working student while at UST. She was a clerk at the Commission on Population.
She also worked as a clerk at the Institute for Labor Studies where she became a labor and development analyst until 1988.
Before her appointment as a public lawyer at the Public Attorneys Office (PAO) of the Department of Justice (DOJ) in 1992, she was a research attorney at the National Labor Relations Commission (NLRC).
In 1995, Judge Reyes became a DOJ prosecutor until 2000.
It was in 2001 when she moved to the judiciary as MTCC judge in Angeles City in Pampanga. Three years later, she was promoted RTC judge and assigned in Quezon City.
Five years after handling hundreds of cases, mostly criminal in nature, Reyes, without hesitation, accepted her new assignment as trial court judge for the 2009 Maguindanao massacre cases where 58 persons were killed in cold blood, 32 of them media practitioners, in Sitio Masalay, Barangay Salman, Ampatuan, Maguindanao.
Those killed were part of a convoy that was to register then Buluan town Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu for the 2010 gubernatorial election. Reports stated that the bodies of those killed were later recovered from shallow graves.
Multiple murder cases were filed against 197 accused.
Reyes took over the trial of the multiple murder cases on Jan. 5, 2010 from Judge Luisito Cortez who inhibited himself for security reasons.
She was provided police escorts for security. At first, she refused but later on agreed for policemen to escort her from home to the court and vice versa.
In 2015, Reyes applied for a post at the Court of Appeals and the Sandiganbayan. She failed in her bid.
Reports stated that she was prevailed upon to stay as judge in the trial of the Maguindanao massacre cases.
Last August, the trial of the cases was terminated and, under the rules, Reyes should have already resolved the cases on or before Nov. 20, 2019, or 90 days after they were submitted for resolution.
But Reyes sought a one-month extension to resolve the cases because of the voluminous amount of records involved – 165 volumes of records of proceedings, 65 volumes of transcripts of stenographic notes, and eight volumes of prosecution’s documentary evidence.
The SC granted her request.
A memorandum sent to Reyes by Court
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