The President formalized last Feb. 10 her appointment of Nazario, who has headed the country’s anti-graft court for almost two years now where she has heard the plunder and graft charges the government has filed against former President Joseph Estrada, now under detention.
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye, in his regular press briefing, said Nazario’s appointment was based on her outstanding performance and the recommendation of the Judicial Bar Council (JBC), headed by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.
Nazario, 66, is Mrs. Arroyo’s eighth appointee to the High Tribunal. Her other appointees include SC Associate Justices Antonio Carpio, Alicia Austria Martinez, Renato Corona, Conchita Carpio Morales, Romeo Callejo Sr., Adolfo Azcuna, and Dante Tinga.
Nazario is a native of San Miguel, Bulacan, and is married to Rodolfo Nazario with whom she has three children. She is the first woman justice of the Sandiganbayan, and chairwoman of the Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division since 1997.
She was also chairwoman of the Sandiganbayan’s Special Division formed by the Supreme Court to try the plunder and graft charges filed by the government against Estrada as per resolution promulgated on Jan. 21, 2002.
She has served for 40 long years in the judiciary, nine of which at the anti-graft court, in various capacities without having been charged criminally or administratively by any party-litigant or lawyer in connection with her performance.
Before her stint at the Sandiganbayan which handles cases of graft and corruption involving government officials, Nazario was a Regional Trial Court judge of Biñan, Laguna since 1987.
She held various positions, such as division clerk of court, Sandiganbayan from 1981 to 1987; senior judicial assistant to Deputy Court Administrator Leo Medialdea and Chief Justice Fred Ruiz Castro from 1979 to 1981, and from 1977 to 1979, respectively.
Nazario was also senior judicial assistant to judicial supervision of the Supreme Court from 1973 to 1977, judicial supervisor at the Department of Justice from 1968 to 1973, and deputy clerk of court, Court of First Instance in Pasay City from 1963 to 1968.
She obtained her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of the Philippines in 1962 and passed the Bar examinations in November of the same year with a rating of 78.1 percent.
