Veteran Legal Services and Liaison Cluster Assistant Secretary Randolph Pascasio was appointed an Associate Justice at the Court of Appeals (CA), which earned Pascasio a Department of Justice (DoJ) commendation.

Through a post on the DoJ’s social media page, the agency commended Pascasio as a “trained problem-solver, critical thinker, legal professor, and Career Executive Service Officer” as he entered the judiciary branch of government.

He was first appointed to his post at the executive branch in 2022, where he paved the way for the formation of the Special Committee on Human Rights Coordination and led the Justice agency’s delegates that participated in the dialogue with the United Nations Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva, Switzerland.

Pascascio was also responsible for elevating the evidentiary threshold when it came to filing complaints for preliminary investigation to prima facie evidence with reasonable certainty of conviction, a standard that has notably been used in the ongoing investigation of the Office of the Ombudsman into the multibillion-peso flood control scandal.

High test grade

In 2025, the lawyer received a score of 89.17 percent as part of the 11th Pre-Judicature Program for Appellate Courts, where aspiring candidates for the judiciary are tested based on their readiness, legal competence and independence.

Aside from serving as an executive at the DOJ, Pascasio had also served as a law professor under San Beda’s colleges of law.

Notably, his appointment to the CA coincided with the assignment of Deputy Secretary Ronald Chua as the newest member of the Sandiganbayan.

Pascasio filled in one of four vacancies under the appeals court as Associate Justices Marie Christine Jacob, Evalyn Arellano-Morales, Marlene Biag Gonzales-Sison, and Apolinario Bruselas Jr. were forced to retire based on compulsory retirement age.