The Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) has submitted to President Arroyo its shortlist of nominees for the position of presiding justice of the Sandiganbayan, the country’s anti-graft court.

The shortlist has the names of three incumbent justices of the Sandiganbayan, including acting Presiding Justice Edilberto G. Sandoval.

Sandoval, the most senior among the justices of the 15-member tribunal, was joined by Associate Justices Francisco Villaruz Jr. and Norberto Y. Geraldez in the JBC shortlist for the sixth chief magistrate of the anti-graft court.

Both Sandoval and Villaruz became members of the Special Division in the anti-graft court that tried the plunder case against former President Joseph Estrada since 2001.

Sandoval was among the original members of the Special Division, along with former Sandiganbayan Presiding Justices Minita Chico Nazario and Teresita Leonardo de Castro.

The two lady magistrates were later on appointed to the SC. Nazario retired from the judiciary last December while De Castro remains a member of the High Court and is in fact one of those being considered by the JBC to replace Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, who is retiring in May.

Villaruz, along with former Sandiganbayan magistrates now SC Associate Justices De Castro and Diosdado Peralta, was a member of the Special Division that convicted Estrada of plunder in September 2007. He is now the chairman of the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division.

Geraldez, a former partner of the prestigious Angara, Abello, Concepcion, Regalla & Cruz (ACCRA) Law Office, is currently the chairman of the First Division, a position also held by three former Sandiganbayan presiding justices – the late Francis Garchitorena, De Castro, and Peralta.

President Arroyo can appoint anyone from Sandoval, Villaruz and Geraldez as replacement of former Presiding Justice Ma. Cristina Cortez Estrada, who retired last November 27 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Meanwhile, one of the applicants for the position, Associate Justice Gregory S. Ong, failed anew to make it the final list of nominees from which the President will choose the next Sandiganbayan chief.

“We excluded Justice Ong because of some pending cases,” said Quezon City Rep. Matias Defensor, an ex-officio member of the JBC.