President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has appointed former Capiz Provincial Information Officer (PIO) Atty. Ferdinand Elbert Jomilla as presiding judge of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 79 in Bacolod City.
In an official communication transmitted to the Supreme Court on March 2, the Office of Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea formally informed Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo of Jomilla’s designation to the judiciary.
Jomilla was the PIO of Capiz provincial government from July 1, 2019 until December 31, 2019, ending his brief term to focus on his private law practice in the province.
He was a former legislative legal officer of Senators Raul Roco and Agapito “Butz” Aquino in the Philippine Senate and the Commission on Appointments.
While in the Senate, he was part of the committee that drafted significant legislative bills which were signed into laws, including Republic Act 7653 entitled “The New Central Bank Act” and Republic 7691, entitled “An Act Expanding the Jurisdiction of Metropolitan Trial Courts, Municipal Trial Courts and Municipal Circuit Trial Courts.”
He was also a legislative legal consultant of former Capiz 1st District Congressman Rodriguez Dadivas in whose term, he drafted House Bill No. 3404 entitled “An Act Creating Two Additional Municipal Trial Court Branches in the City of Roxas, Province of Capiz” which was approved and signed into law as Republic Act No. 9274 by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on March 21, 2004.
In 1987, Jomilla was chosen one of “The Outstanding Students” (THOS) awardees by the Philippines Jaycees and was also an IWAG Awardee of the defunct Ministry of Public Information for excellence in campus journalism as a multi-awarded college editor-in-chief.
His alma mater, the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos, conferred on him the “Most Outstanding Alumni Award in law and Public Service” in 2004 for his professional achievements.
Jomilla graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Philosophy and earned his law degree at the San Beda College of Law in 1992.*
