Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippines

An associate justice of the Supreme Court is one of fifteen members of the Supreme Court, the highest court in the Philippines. The chief justice presides over the high court, but carries only one of the 15 votes in the court. Traditionally, the chief justice is deemed primus inter pares among the justices.
Until 1973, only men were appointed as Associate Justices to the Court. Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, an appointee of President Ferdinand Marcos, was the first woman to sit on the court. Since then, 15 other women have been appointed as Associate Justices of the Supreme Court. The most recent woman to be appointed to the high tribunal is Maria Filomena Singh, a former justice of the Court of Appeals of the Philippines on May 18, 2022.

Incumbent associate justices

, there are fourteen associate justices on the Supreme Court, with the most recent appointment being that of Raul Villanueva on June 9, 2025.
The justices, ordered by seniority, are:

Constitutional requirements and limitations

Under the 1987 Constitution, the minimum requirements for appointment to the Supreme Court are natural born citizenship; 40 years of age; and 15 years or more as a judge of a lower court or engaged in the practice of law in the Philippines. The members of the Court are appointed by the President from a list of at least 3 nominees prepared by the Judicial and Bar Council. The appointment is not subject to confirmation by Congress.
Members of the Court are mandated to retire upon reaching the age of 70. They may also be removed from office through impeachment, which is accomplished through a resolution of impeachment affirmed by a 1/3 vote of all members of the House of Representatives and conviction by 2/3 vote of all members of the Senate.
Since 1901, there has always been only one Chief Justice. In contrast, the number of Associate Justices has wildly varied. From the original number of six, this was increased to eight, then to ten. During the years 1940–1945, the membership varied from five to seven. After liberation in 1945, the number was reset to ten, and the current number of fourteen was first set in place with the enactment of the 1973 Constitution. During the first few months of the Aquino administration, ten Associate Justices sat on the Court, but the appointment of Carolina Griño-Aquino in February 1988 finally restored the number of Associate Justices at fourteen.

Official functions

The cases decided by the Supreme Court involve several classes of disputes. Most prominently, the Court is called upon to exercise the power of judicial review of presidential or legislative actions. More often, the Court also undertakes appellate review of decisions of the trial courts and the Court of Appeals in civil and criminal cases. The Court is also tasked with deciding administrative cases involving members and employees of the judiciary and of lawyers belonging to the Philippine Bar. The decisions of the Court become part of the law of the land.
Each Justice carries one vote on the Court which they exercise whether when sitting in Division, or in the full complement of 15. Since the 1970s, the Supreme Court has sat in three divisions, with five Justices as members of each division. As most Supreme Court cases are decided by the division rather than the en banc, a vote of three Justices sitting in a division is usually sufficient to decide the case. However, the Constitution prescribes instances whereby a case must be decided en banc, such as in declaring a law as unconstitutional or when a judicial precedent is overturned. Each vote can be crucial, as recently shown in the 2006 People's Initiative case, which was decided en banc by an 8–7 vote.
As a case is decided, one justice in the majority is assigned to write the majority opinion for the Court. Even as these decisions speak in behalf of the Court, the writer of the opinion is strongly identified with the decision, and the body of opinions of each Justice enhances his/her reputation. Many important opinions are analyzed in law schools and are well-remembered long after the Justice had left the Court. For example, several of the opinions of Associate Justice Jose P. Laurel were crucial in the development of Philippine jurisprudence and are widely read and quoted nearly 70 years after they had been written.
Any other Justice, whether they be in the majority or in the minority, is entitled to write a separate opinion in a case to clarify his/her views, or even to challenge the points raised in the majority opinion. In the 1973 case of , concerning the ratification of the 1973 Constitution, each Justice chose to write a separate opinion, while more recently, the 2005 decision on the Expanded VAT Law saw 11 separate opinions. The separate opinions of a Justice in the majority is usually known as a "concurring opinion", while one penned by a Justice in the minority is known as a "dissenting opinion". A Justice who only partially agrees with the majority opinion while disagreeing with portions thereof may even write a "concurring and dissenting opinion".
While these separate opinions do not receive as much public attention as majority opinions, they are usually studied in the legal academe and by other judges. On several occasions, views expressed in a dissenting or concurring opinion were adopted by the Supreme Court in later years. Justice Gregorio Perfecto, whose staunch libertarian views were out of sync with the Cold War era, wrote over 140 dissenting opinions in just 4 years. Years after his death, some of his views in dissent, such as in were adopted by a more liberal Supreme Court.

The rule of seniority

The Associate Justices of the Court are usually ordered according to the date of their appointment. There are no official ramifications as to this ranking, although the order determines the seating arrangement on the bench and is duly considered in all matters of protocol. Within the discretion of the Court, the ranking may also factor into the composition of the divisions of the Court.
In 1986, the order of seniority in the Court was modified upon the assumption to the presidency of Corazon C. Aquino. President Aquino had sought to reorganize the Court by obtaining the resignation of most of the Associate Justices who had been appointed by Ferdinand Marcos, and filling those vacancies with her own choices. Eventually, Aquino chose to re-appoint three Marcos-appointed Justices: Ameurfina A. Melencio-Herrera, Hugo E. Gutierrez, Jr. and Nestor B. Alampay, but did so only after appointing several new Justices to the Court. The previous service of these three were not considered for the purposes of determining seniority. This point would cause a minor controversy in 1992. During that time, it was advocated in some sectors that Herrera, as the longest serving incumbent Associate Justice, was more qualified to succeed the resigned Chief Justice Marcelo B. Fernan than Andres R. Narvasa, who was considered as the Senior Associate Justice despite having been appointed to the Court 7 years after Melencio-Herrera. President Aquino eventually appointed Narvasa over Herrera.
The incumbent Justice with the earliest date of appointment is deemed the Senior Associate Justice. The Senior Associate Justice has no constitutional or statutory duties, but usually acts as Acting Chief Justice during the absence of the Chief Justice. The Senior Associate Justice is also usually designated as the chairperson of the second division of the Court.
The following became Senior Associate Justices in their tenure in the Supreme Court:

No.	Senior Associate Justice	Year Appointed	Tenure
1	Florentino Torres	1901	1901–1920
2	Elias Finley Johnson	1903	1920–1933
3	Thomas A. Street	1917	1933–1935
4	George A. Malcolm	1917	1935–1936
5	Antonio Villa-Real	1925	1936–1940
6	José Abad Santos	1932	1940–1941
7	José P. Laurel Sr.	1936	1941–1942
8	Manuel V. Moran	1938	1942–1945
9	Roman Ozaeta	1941	1945–1950
10	Ricardo M. Paras Jr.	1941	1950–1951
11	Felicisimo R. Feria	1945	1951–1953
12	César F. Bengzon	1945	1953–1961
13	Sabino B. Padilla	1945	1961– 1964
14	Roberto R. Concepcion	1954	1964–1966
15	Jose B. L. Reyes	1954	1966–1972
16	Querube C. Makalintal	1962	1972–1973
17	Roberto Regala	1962	1973–1975
18	Fred Ruiz Castro	1966	1975–1976
19	Enrique M. Fernando Sr.	1967	1976–1979
20	Claudio Teehankee Sr.	1968	1979–1987
21	Ameurfina Melencio-Herrera	1979 and 1986	April 2, 1987–May 11, 1992
22	Hugo Gutierrez Jr.	1982 and 1986	May 11, 1992–March 31, 1993
23	Isagani A. Cruz	1986	March 31, 1993–October 11, 1994
24	Florentino P. Feliciano	1986	October 11, 1994–December 13, 1995
25	Teodoro R. Padilla	1987	December 13, 1995–August 22, 1997
26	Florenz D. Regalado	1988	August 22, 1997–October 13, 1998
27	Flerida Ruth P. Romero	1991	October 13, 1998–August 1, 1999
28	Josue N. Bellosillo	1992	August 1, 1999–November 13, 2003
29	Reynato S. Puno	1993	November 13, 2003–December 7, 2006
30	Leonardo A. Quisumbing	1998	December 7, 2006–November 6, 2009
31	Antonio T. Carpio	2001	November 6, 2009–October 26, 2019
32	Estela M. Perlas-Bernabe	2011	October 26, 2019–May 14, 2022
33	Marvic Leonen	2012	May 14, 2022–present